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STUDIES  IN  THE 
ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 


WORKS  BY  ARTHUR  SYMONS 


Cities  (Illustrated) 

Cities  of  Italy 

Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Browning 

•(New  Edition) 
Plays,  Acting  and  Music 
The  Romantic  Movement  in  English  Poetry 
Spiritual  Adventures 
Studies  in  Prose  and  Verse 
Studies  in  Seven  Arts 
William  Blake 

Figures  of  Several  Centuries 
Colour  Studies  In  Paris  (Illustrated) 

The  Symbolist  Movement  in  Literature 

(Revised  and  Enlarged  Edition) 
Studies  in  the  Elizabethan  Drama 


E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK 


STUDIES  IN  THE 
ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 


BY 

ARTHUR    SYMONS 

AUTHOR  OF 

*'  CITIES  OF  ITALY,"     "  PLATS,  ACTING  AND  Music, 

"THE  ROMANTIC  MOVEMENT  IN  ENGLISH  POETRY,'' 

."STUDIES  IN  SEVEN  ARTS,"  "COLOUR  STUDIES 

IN  PARIS,"  "THE  SYMBOLIST  MOVEMENT 

IN  LITERATURE,"  ETC.,  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 

681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


COPYRIGHT,  1919,  BY 
E.  P.  BUTTON  &  CO. 


All  Bights  Reserved 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAOH 

I.  ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA      ....  1 

II.  MACBETH 21 

III.  TWELFTH  NIGHT 35 

IV.  MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE     ....  44 
V.  THE  WINTER'S  TALE 53 

VI.  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  AND  THE  TRAGEDY 

OF  BLOOD 61 

VII.  THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII    .     .  88 

VIII.  ROMEO  AND  JULIET 117 

IX.  CYMBELINE 132 

X.  TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA       ....  147 

XI.  PHILIP  MASSINGER 161 

XII.  JOHN  DAY 195 

XIII.    MlDDLETON   AND  ROWLEY 


STUDIES  IN 
THE   ELIZABETHAN   DRAMA 

I.     ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA 

Antony  and  Cleopatra  is  the  most  wonder- 
ful, I  think,  of  all  Shakespeare's  plays,  and 
it  is  so  mainly  because  the  figure  of  Cleo- 
patra is  the  most  wonderful  of  Shakespeare's 
women.  And  not  of  Shakespeare's  women 
only,  but  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  of 
women.  The  queen  who  ends  the  dynasty 
of  the  Ptolemies  has  been  the  star  of  poets, 
a  malign  star  shedding  baleful  light,  from 
Horace  and  Propertius  down  to  Victor  Hugo; 
and  it  is  not  to  poets  only  that  her  name  has 
come  to  be  synonymous  with  all  that  one  can 
conceive  of  the  subtlety  of  beauty.  Before 
the  thought  of  Cleopatra  every  man  is  an 
Antony,  Shakespeare  no  less  than  another, 
though  in  the  play  he  holds  the  balance  quite 


2       STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

steadily.  The  very  name  calls  up  everything 
that  one  has  read  or  thought  or  known  of 
"  the  world  well  lost,"  the  giving  up  of  all  for 
love,  the  supreme  surrender  into  the  hands  of 
Lilith,  and  the  inevitable  penalty.  Probably 
Shakespeare  had  had  his  Cleopatra,  though, 
fortunately  for  us  and  for  him,  he  stopped 
short  of  the  choice  of  Antony,  when 

Entre  elle  et  1'univers  qui  s'offraient  &  la  fois 
II  h^sita,  lachant  le  monde  dans  son  choix. 

But  unless  we  adopt  the  surely  untenable 
theory  that  the  Sonnets,  with  their  passionate 
sincerity  of  utterance,  the  curiously  individual 
note  of  their  complex  harmonies,  are  merely 
passion  according  to  the  Italian  Opera,  is  it 
not  possible  that  the  dark  woman,  the  "  woman 
coloured  ill,"  of  whom  they  show  us  such 
significant  hints  of  outline,  may  have  turned 
his  thoughts  in  the  direction  of  Plutarch's 
story  of  Antony  and  Cleopatra?  It  is  possible ; 
and  if  so,  Shakespeare  must  have  felt  a 
singular  satisfaction  in  putting  thus  to  use  an 
experience  bought  so  sorrowfully,  with  so 
much  "expense  of  spirit;"  must  have  felt  that 
he  was  repaid,  more  than  repaid. 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  3 

In  the  conduct  of  this  play,  dealing  with  so 
typical  a  story  of  passion,  and  with  lovers  so 
unrestrained,  it  is  curious  to  note  how  much 
there  is  of  restraint,  of  coolness,  how  carefully 
the  style  everywhere  is  heightened,  and  how 
much  of  gravity,  in  the  scenes  of  political 
moment,  comes  to  hinder  us  from  any  sense 
of  surfeit  in  those  scenes,  the  central  ones  of 
action  and  interest,  in  which  the  heady  pas- 
sion of  Cleopatra  spends  itself.  Never  was 
a  play  fuller  of  contrasts,  of  romantic  elements, 
of  variety.  The  stage  is  turbulent  with  move- 
ment; messengers  come  and  go  incessantly, 
troops  are  passing  over,  engaging,  and  now  in 
flight;  the  scene  shifts,  carrying  us  backward 
and  forward  with  a  surprising  rapidity.  But 
one  has  a  feeling  that  contrast  is  of  the  essence 
of  the  piece,  and  that  surprise  is  to  be  expected; 
and  not  even  the  variety  of  the  play  is  more 
evident  than  its  perfect  congruity.  Some  of 
this  comes  about,  there  can  be  little  question, 
from  the  way  in  which  Shakespeare  has  con- 
structed his  play  on  the  very  lines  of  Plutarch, 
following  his  authority  with  a  scrupulousness 
not  unlike  that  of  a  modern  Realist  for  his 
"  human  documents,"  and  no  doubt  for  the 


4       STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

same  reason.  Plutarch  was,  for  Shakespeare, 
the  repository  of  actual  fact;  in  those  pages  he 
found  the  liveliest  image  attainable  of  things 
as  they  really  happened,  and  in  the  comments, 
outlining  the  characters,  something  far  more 
likely  to  be  right  than  the  hazard  of  any  guess 
of  his,  so  long  after.  And  so  fully  aware 
was  he  of  the  priceless  value  of  every  hint 
art  can  extort  from  nature,  of  the  priceless 
value  of  all  we  can  get  of  real  nature,  that  he 
was  content  here  to  copy  merely,  to  recon- 
struct after  a  given  plan,  and  almost  without 
altering  a  single  outline.  He  gave  the  outlines 
life,  that  was  all;  and  it  is  a  real  Antony,  a 
real  Cleopatra,  that  come  before  us  on  the 
romantic  stage. 

While  the  main  interest  of  the  play  is  of 
course  centred  in  the  personages  who  give  it 
name,  Shakespeare  has  not  here  adopted  the 
device,  used  in  Macbeth,  for  instance,  of  care- 
fully subordinating  all  the  other  characters, 
leaving  the  two  principal  ones  under  a  strong 
light,  and  in  a  salient  isolation.  He  has  rather 
developed  these  characters  through  the  me- 
dium of  a  crowd  of  persons  and  incidents, 
giving  us,  not  a  small  corner  of  existence 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  5 

burningly  alive  with  tremendous  issues,  but  a 
lover's  tragic  comedy  played  out  in  the  sight 
of  the  world,  on  an  eminence,  and  with  the 
fate  of  nations  depending  upon  it;  a  tragic 
comedy  in  whose  fortunes  the  arrival  of  a 
messenger  may  make  a  difference,  and  whose 
scenes  are  timed  by  interviews  with  generals 
and  rulers.  It  is  the  eternal  tragedy  of  love 
and  ambition,  and  here,  for  once,  it  is  the  love 
which  holds  by  the  baser  nature  of  the  man 
who  is  the  subject  of  it,  the  ambition  which 
is  really  the  prompting  of  his  nobler  side. 
Thus  the  power  of  Cleopatra  is  never  more 
really  visible  than  in  the  scenes  in  which  she 
does  not  appear,  and  in  which  Antony  seems 
to  have  forgotten  her.  For  by  the  tremendous 
influences  which  in  these  scenes  are  felt  to 
be  drawing  him  away  from  her,  by  all  that  we 
see  and  hear  of  the  incitements  to  heroic 
action  and  manly  life,  we  can  measure  the  force 
of  that  magic  which  brings  him  back  always; 
from  Ca?sar,  who  might  be  a  friend,  from 
Octavia,  who  would  be  a  wife,  from  Pompey, 
a  rival;  to  her  feet.  Such  scenes  are,  besides, 
a  running  comment  of  moral  interpretation, 
and  impress  upon  us  a  sane  and  weighty 


criticism  of  that  flushed  and  feverish  existence, 
with  what  is  certainly  so  tempting  in  it, 
which  is  being  led  by  these  imperial  lovers  on 
terms  of  such  absolute  abandonment  of  every- 
thing to  the  claims  of  love.  This  criticism 
is  singularly  definite,  leaving  us  in  no  doubt 
as  to  the  moral  Shakespeare  intended  to  draw, 
a  moral  still  further  emphasized  by  the  reti- 
cent quietude  of  Octavia,  the  counterpoise  to 
Cleopatra;  a  character  of  delicate  invention, 
surprising  us  by  the  precise  and  attractive 
image  she  leaves  upon  a  play  where  she  is 
mainly  silent.  The  ambiguous  character  of 
Enobarbus  is  still  further  useful  in  giving  the 
point  of  irony  which  appears  in  all  really  true 
and  fine  studies  of  a  world  in  which  irony 
seems,  after  all,  to  be  the  final  word  with  the 
disinterested  observer.  Enobarbus  acts  the 
part  of  chorus.  He  is  neither  for  nor  against 
virtue;  and  by  seeming  to  confound  moral 
judgments  he  serves  the  part  of  artistic 
equity. 

"  Antonius  being  thus  inclined,  the  last  and- 
extremest  mischief  of  all  other  (to  wit,  the  love 
of  Cleopatra)  lighted  upon  him,  who  did  waken 
and  stir  up  many  vices  yet  hidden  in  him, 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  7 

and  were  never  seen  of  any:  and  if  any  spark 
of  goodness  or  hope  of  rising  were  left  him, 
Cleopatra  quenched  it  straight,  and  made  it 
worse  than  before."  So  Plutarch,  in  the  pic- 
turesque version  of  Sir  Thomas  North, 
"  Shakespeare's  Plutarch,"  gives  the  first 
distinct  sign  of  the  finally  downward  course 
of  Antony.  Of  Antony  as  he  had  been,  we 
read  a  little  above:  "  Howbeit  he  was  of 
such  a  strong  nature,  that  by  patience  he  would 
overcome  any  adversity:  and  the  heavier 
fortune  lay  upon  him,  the  more  constant 
showed  he  himself."  When  the  play  opens, 
this  Antony  of  the  past  is  past  indeed;  the 
first  words  strike  the  keynote:  "Nay,  but  this 
dotage  of  our  general's."  Yet  in  the  character 
as  it  comes  before  us,  one  finds,  broken  indeed 
yet  there  though  in  ruins,  the  potent  nature  of 
the  man,  standing  out  now  and  again  suddenly, 
though  with  but  little  result  in  action.  See, 
for  example,  in  the  second  scene,  the  scarcely 
perceptible  flash,  in  the  jesting  colloquy 
with  Enobarbus:  "  No  more  light  words!" 
and  the  sudden  change  which  comes  about. 
He  can  still,  when  Antony  is  Antony,  com- 
mand. And  observe  again,  in  the  meeting 


8        STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

between  the  jarring  triumvirs,  how  gravely 
and  well  he  holds  his  own,  and  especially  that 
scrupulous  care  of  his  honour,  evidently  so 
dear  to  him,  and  by  no  means  a  matter  of 
words  only.  But  the  man,  as  we  see  him, 
is  wrecked;  he  has  given  himself  wholly  over 
into  the  hands  of  a  woman,  "  being  so  ravished 
and  enchanted  of  the  sweet  poison  of  her  love, 
that  he  had  no  other  thought  but  of  her." 
It  is  in  studying  Cleopatra  that  we  shall  best 
see  all  that  is  important  for  us  to  see  of  Antony. 
In  the  short  scene  which  serves  for  prelude 
to  the  play,  we  get  a  significant  glimpse  of 
the  kind  of  power  wielded  by  Cleopatra,  and 
the  manner  hi  which  she  wields  it.  We  see 
her  taming  with  an  inflection  of  frivolous 
irony  the  man  who  has  conquered  kingdoms; 
and  we  see,  too,  the  unerring  and  very  femi- 
nine skill,  the  finesse  of  light  words  veiling  a 
strong  purpose,  by  which  she  works  the 
charm.  From  the  second  scene  we  perceive 
something  of  the  tremors  incident  to  a  con- 
quest held  on  such  terms:  the  fear  of  that 
"  Roman  thought  "  which  has  taken  Antony, 
the  little  touch  of  anxiety  at  his  leaving  her 
for  a  moment.  So  long  as  the  man  is  in  her 


ANTONY  AND  CLEPOATRA  9 

presence  she  knows  he  is  safe.  But  she  has 
always  to  dread  the  hour  of  departure.  And 
now  Antony  is  going.  She  plays  her  spells 
admirably,  but  with  a  knowledge  that  they 
will  be  for  once  in  vain.  Her  tongue  still 
bites  with  the  scourge  of  Fulvia:  "What 
says  the  married  woman?"  the  sneer,  a  little 
bitter  to  say,  which  comes  from  a  conscious- 
ness of  the  something  after  all  worth  having 
in  mere  virtue,  turned  desperately  into  a 
form  of  angry  and  contemptuous  mockery. 
Antony  is  not  yet  dead  to  honour;  he  feels 
his  strength,  feels  that  he  can  break  away 
from  the  enchantress,  as  Tannhauser  breaks 
away  from  Venus.  But  Cleopatra  knows 
well  that,  like  Tannhauser,  her  lover  must 
come  back  and  be  hers  for  ever. 

One  sees  from  the  scene  which  follows  how 
deeply  Cleopatra  loves,  not  alone  her  con- 
quest, but  her  lover.  Hers  is  a  real  passion, 
the  passion  of  a  woman  whose  Greek  blood 
is  heated  by  the  suns  of  Egypt,  who  knows, 
too,  how  much  greater  is  the  intoxication  of 
loving  than  of  being  loved.  There  is  a  pas- 
sage in  one  of  the  Lettres  Portugaises,  and  no 
passage  in  that  little  golden  book  is  more 


10     STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

subtly  true,  in  which  the  "  learned  nun,"  so 
learned  in  the  ways  of  love,  pities  her  incon- 
stant lover  for  the  "  infinite  pleasures  he  has 
lost  "  if  he  has  never  really  loved  her.  "  Ah, 
if  you  had  known  them,"  she  says,  "  vous 
auriez  eprouve*  qu'on  est  beaucoup  plus  heu- 
reux,  et  qu'on  sent  quelque  chose  de  bien 
plus  touchant  quand  on  aime  violemment 
que  lorsqu'on  est  aimeY'  Cleopatra  knew 
this  as  she  knew  everything  belonging  to  the 
art  of  which  she  was  mistress.  "  Us  who  trade 
in  love,"  she  speaks  of  frankly,  but  with  per- 
fect self-knowledge;  a  saying,  however,  which 
does  her  injustice  if  it  leads  us  to  confound  her 
with  the  Manon  Lescauts,  exquisite,  faithless 
creatures  who  keep  for  their  lovers  an  entirely 
serviceable  kind  of  affection,  changing  a  lover 
for  a  calculated  advantage.  Love  is  a  "  trade  " 
in  which  she  never  calculates;  wily  by  nature, 
and  as  a  loving  woman  is  wily  who  has  to 
humour  her  lover,  she  follows  her  blood,  fol- 
lows it  to  distraction,  and  her  fits  and  starts 
are  not  alone  played  for  a  purpose,  before 
Antony,  but  are  native  to  her,  and  break  out 
with  the  same  violence  before  her  women. 
She  is  a  woman  who  must  have  a  lover,  but 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  11 

she  is  satisfied  with  one,  with  one  at  a  time; 
and  in  Antony  she  finds  her  ideal,  whom  she 
can  call,  in  her  pride,  and  truly: 

The  demi-Atlas  of  this  earth,  the  arm 
And  burgonet  of  men. 

And  she  loves  him  with  passion  real  of  its  kind, 
an  intense,  an  exacting,  an  oppressive  and  over- 
whelming passion,  wholly  of  the  senses  and 
wholly  selfish:  the  love  which  requires  pos- 
session, and  to  absorb  the  loved  one.  Before 
Antony  she  is  never  demonstrative:  "  the  way 
to  lose  him!"  She  knows  that  a  man  like 
Antony  is  not  to  be  taken  with  snares  of  mere 
sweetness,  that  neither  for  her  beauty  nor  for 
her  love  would  he  love  her  continuously. 
She  knows  how  to  interest  him,  to  be  to  him 
everything  he  would  have  in  woman,  to 
change  with  or  before  every  mood  of  his  as  it 
changes.  And  this  is  her  secret,  as  it  is  the 
secret  of  success  in  her  kind  of  love.  "  So 
sweet  was  her  company  and  conversation  that 
a  man  could  not  possibly  but  be  taken,"  we 
read  in  Plutarch.  And  Shakespeare  has  ex- 
pressed it  monumentally  in  the  lines  which 
bring  the  whole  woman  before  us: 


12      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

Age  cannot  wither  her  nor  custom  stale 
Her  infinite  variety:  other  women  cloy 
The  appetite  they  feed;  but  she  makes  hungry 
Where  most  she  satisfies:  for  vilest  things 
Become  themselves  in  her. 

In  the  fifth  scene  of  the  second  act  we  have 
what  is  perhaps  the  most  wonderful  revelation 
that  literature  gives  us  of  the  essentially 
feminine;  not  necessarily  of  woman  in  the 
general,  but  of  that  which  radically,  in  looking 
at  human  nature,  seems  to  differentiate  the 
woman  from  the  man.  It  is  a  scene  with  the 
infinite  variety  of  Cleopatra:  it  is  as  miracu- 
lous as  she:  it  proves  to  us  that  the  woman 
who  was  "  cunning  past  man's  thought" 
could  not  be  cunning  past  the  thought  of 
Shakespeare.  We  realize  from  this  scene, 
more  clearly  than  from  anything  else  in  the 
play,  the  boundless  empire  of  her  caprice,  the 
incalculable  instability  of  her  moods,  and  how 
natural  to  her,  how  entirely  instinctive,  is 
the  spirit  of  change  and  movement  by  which, 
partly,  she  fascinates  her  lover.  The  scene 
brings  out  the  tiger  element  in  her,  the  union, 
which  we  find  so  often,  of  cruelty  with  volup- 
tuousness. It  shows  us,  too,  that  even  in 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  13 

the  most  violent  shock  of  real  emotion  she 
never  quite  loses  the  consciousness  of  self,  that 
she  cannot  be  quite  simple.  Even  at  the 
moment  when  the  blow  strikes  her,  the  news 
of  the  marriage  with  Octavia,  she  has  still  the 
posing  instinct:  "I  am  pale,  Charmian!" 
Then  what  a  world  of  meaning,  how  subtle 
a  touch  of  insight  into  the  secrets  of  the  hearts 
of  women,  there  is  in  that  avowal: 

In  praising  Antony,  I  have  dispraised  Csesar. 

I  am  paid  for  't  now. 

But  when  at  last,  exhausted  by  the  violence 
of  her  battling  and  uncontrollable  emotions, 
she  surprises  us  by  those  humble  words,  so 
full  of  real  pathos: 

Pity  me,  Charmian, 
But  do  not  speak  to  me; 

one  becomes  aware  of  how  deeply  the  blow  has 
struck,  how  much  there  is  in  her  to  feel  such  a 
blow.  Certainly,  in  this  as  in  everything,  she 
can  never  be  quite  simple.  There  is  wounded 
vanity  as  well  as  wounded  love  in  her  cry. 
But  it  is  the  proudest  as  well  as  the  most 
pitiless  of  women  who  asks  for  pity;  and  one 
can  refuse  her  nothing,  not  even  that. 


14     STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

It  is  significant  of  the  magic  charm  of  the 
"queen,  whom  everything  becomes,"  and  of 
the  magic  of  Shakespeare's  art,  that  she 
fascinates  us  even  in  her  weakness,  dominating 
derision,  and  whining  an  extorted  admira- 
tion from  the  very  borders  of  contempt.  In 
the  scene  which  follows  the  flight  from  Actium, 
Shakespeare  puts  forth  his  full  power.  There 
are  few  more  effective  groupings  than  this  of 
Cleopatra  sitting  silent  over  against  Antony, 
neither  daring  to  approach  the  other;  he, 
crushed  into  an  unspeakable  shame  which 
can  never  be  redeemed;  she,  incapable  of 
shame,  but  seeing  it  in  the  eyes  of  Antony, 
and  conscious  that  she  has  done  him  a  deed 
which  can  never  be  forgiven.  She  is  here,  as 
ever,  cunning.  Excuses  can  but  be  useless, 
and  she  attempts  none,  none  but  the  faintest 
murmur: 

I  never  thought 
You  would  have  followed! 

It  is  a  mere  broken  sob  of  "  Pardon,  pardon!" 
The  tears  are  at  hand,  tears  being  with  her  the 
last  weapon  of  all  her  armoury.  They  cannot 
but  conquer,  and  the  lover,  who  has  given  the 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  13 

world  for  love,  says,  not  without  the  saddest 
of  irony,  as  he  takes  her  kiss:  "  Even  this 
repays  me." 

It  is  in  the  recoil  from  a  reconciliation  felt 
to  be  ignoble  that  Antony  bursts  out  into  such 
coarse  and  furious  abuse,  the  first  really  angry 
reproaches  he  has  addressed  to  her,  at  the 
mere  sight  of  Csesar's  messenger  kissing  her 
hand.  Despair  and  self-reproach  have  pricked 
him  into  a  state  of  smarting  sensitiveness. 
One  sees  that,  as  Enobarbus  says,  "  valour 
preys  on  reason";  he  is  "frighted  out  of 
fear."  Well  may  Caesar  exclaim:  "  Poor 
Antony!"  Is  there  really  a  cause  for  his  sus- 
picion of  Cleopatra?  Did  she  really  betray 
him  to  Csesar?  Plutarch  is  silent,  and  Shake- 
speare seems  intentionally  to  leave  it  a  little 
vague.  But  I  think  the  suspicion  wrongs 
her.  Merely  on  the  ground  of  worldly  pru- 
dence she  had  more  to  hope  from  Antony  than 
from  Caesar.  And  there  is  nothing  in  all  she 
says  to  Antony  which  comes  with  a  more 
genuine  sound  than  that  reproachful  question: 
"Not  know  me  yet?"  and  then,  "Ah,  dear, 
if  I  be  so!" 

I  have  said  that  Cleopatra  has  the  instinct 


16      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

of  posing.  But  in  Antony,  too,  there  is  almost 
always  something  showy,  an  element  of  some- 
what theatrical  sentiment.  Now,  preparing 
for  his  last  battle,  and  really  moved  himself, 
he  cannot  help  posturing  a  little  before  his 
servants,  exerting  himself  to  win  their  tears. 
It  is  not  a  simple  leave-taking;  it  comes  as  if 
prepared  beforehand.  And  next  morning,  how 
stagily,  and  yet  with  what  a  real  exhilaration 
of  spirits,  does  he  arm  himself  and  go  forth, 
going  forth  gallantly,  indeed,  as  Cleopatra 
says  of  him!  Experience  has  taught  him  so 
little  that  he  thinks  even  now  that  he  may 
conquer.  It  has  been  so  much  his  habit,  as  it 
has  been  Cleopatra's  (caught  perhaps  from  her) 
to  believe  what  he  pleases!  His  treatment  of 
Enobarbus  shows  him  still  capable  of  a  gener- 
ous act;  a  little  ostentatious,  as  it  may  per- 
haps be.  And  the  effect  of  that  generous  and 
forbearing  tolerance  shows  that  his  fascination 
has  not  left  him  even  in  his  evil  fortune.  He 
can  still  conquer  hearts.  And  Cleopatra's? 
His,  certainly,  is  still  hers;  and  when,  raging 
against  the  woman  who  has  wrought  all  his 
miseries,  he  learns  the  news  of  her  pretended 
death,  it  is  with  words  full  of  the  quiet  of 


ANTONY  AND  CLEPOATRA  17 

despair  that  he  takes  the  blow  which  releases 

him: 

Unarm  me,  Eros;  the  long  day's  task  is  done, 
And  we  must  sleep. 

Love,  as  it  does  always  when  death  has  freed 
us  from  what  we  had  felt  to  be  a  burden, 
returns;  and  he  stabs  himself  with  the  sole 
thought  of  rejoining  her.  When,  this  side  of 
the  grave,  he  does  rejoin  her,  not  a  syllable  of 
regret  or  reproach  falls  from  his  lips.  In  the 
presence  of  death  he  becomes  gentle:  the 
true  sweetness  of  the  man's  nature,  long 
poisoned,  comes  back  again  at  last.  Nothing 
now  is  left  him  but  his  love  for  Cleopatra,  love 
refined  to  an  oblivious  tenderness;  that,  and 
the  thought  that  death  is  upon  him,  and  that 
he  falls  not  ignobly: 

a  Roman  by  a  Roman 
Valiantly  vanquished. 

And  so  the  fourth  act  ends  on  the  magnificent 
words  of  Cleopatra  over  the  dead  body  of 
the  lord  of  the  world  and  of  her.  The  thought 
and  the  spectacle  of  death,  of  such  a  death, 
call  out  in  her  a  far-thoughted  reflection  on 
the  blindness  of  Fate,  the  general  hazard  of 
the  world's  course,  with  a  vivid  sense  of  the 


18     STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

emptiness  of  all  for  which  one  takes  thought. 
Death  takes  Antony  as  a  mean  man  is  taken; 
her,  too,  he  leaves  unqueened,  a  mere  woman 
who  has  lost  her  lover.  Then  "  all's  but 
nought,"  the  world  is  left  poor,  the  light  of 
it  gone  out;  and  it  is  with  real  sincerity,  with 
a  feeling  of  overwhelming  disaster  now  irre- 
trievably upon  her,  that  she  looks  to  "  the 
briefest  end." 

In  her  last  days  Cleopatra  touches  a  certain 
elevation:  the  thought  of  the  death  she  pre- 
pares for  herself  intoxicates  (while  it  still 
frights)  her  reason.  It  gives  her  still  a 
triumphant  sense  of  her  mastery  over  even 
Csesar,  whom  she  will  conquer  by  eluding; 
over  even  Destiny,  from  which  she  will  escape 
by  the  way  of  death.  After  all,  the  keenest  in- 
citement to  her  choice  comes  from  the  thought 
of  being  led  hi  triumph  to  Rome;  of  appearing 
there,  little  and  conquered,  before  Octavia. 
She  has  lived  a  queen;  in  all  her  fortunes  there 
has  been,  as  she  conceived  it,  no  dishonour. 
She  will  die  now,  she  would  die  a  thousand 
times,  rather  than  live  to  be  a  mockery  and 
a  scorn  in  men's  mouths.  How  significant  is 
her  ceaseless  and  panging  remembrance  of 


ANTONY  AND  CLEOPATRA  19 

Octavia!  a  touch  of  almost  petty  spite,  the 
spite  of  a  jealous  woman.  Petty,  too  (but, 
inexhaustible  as  she  is  in  resources,  turned, 
with  the  frank  audacity  of  genius,  into  a  final 
triumph)  is  the  keeping  back  of  the  treasures. 
But  craft  is  as  natural  to  her  as  breath.  It  is 
by  craft  that  she  is  to  attain  her  end  of  dying. 
The  means  of  that  attainment,  a  poor  man 
bringing  death  in  his  basket  of  figs,  the  very 
homeliness  of  the  fact,  comes  with  an  added 
effect  of  irony  in  the  passing  of  this  imperial 
creature.  She  is  a  woman  to  the  last,  and  it 
is  in  no  heroic  frame  of  mind  that  she  com- 
mends the  easiness  of  the  death  by  which  she 
is  to  die.  Yet,  too,  all  her  greatness  gathers 
itself,  her  love  of  Antony  (the  one  thing  that 
had  ever  been  real  and  steadfast  in  the  deadly 
quicksand  of  her  mind)  her  pride  and  her 
tenderness,  and,  at  the  last,  her  resolution. 

I  am  fire  and  air;  my  other  elements 
I  give  to  baser  life. 

So  she  dies,  undisfigured  in  death,  the  signs  of 
death  barely  perceptible,  lying 

As  she  would  catch  another  Antony 
In  her  strong  toil  of  grace. 


20      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

And  the  play  ends  with  a  touch  of  grave  pity 
over  "a  pair  so  famous,"  cut  off  after  a  life  so 
full  of  glory  and  of  dishonour,  and  taking  with 
them,  in  then-  passing  out  of  it,  so  much  of  the 
warmth  and  colour  of  the  world. 

1889. 


II.    MACBETH 

OF  all  Shakespeare's  tragedies,  Macbeth  is 
the  simplest  in  outline,  the  swiftest  in  action. 
After  the  witches'  prelude,  the  first  scene 
brings  us  at  once  into  the  centre  of  stormy 
interest,  and  in  Macbeth's  first  words  an  am- 
biguous note  prepares  us  for  strange  things  to 
come.  Thence  to  the  end  there  is  no  turning 
aside  in  the  increasing  speed  of  events. 
Thought  jumps  to  action,  action  is  overtaken 
by  consequence,  with  a  precipitate  haste,  as 
if  it  were  all  written  breathlessly.  And  in  the 
style  (always  the  style  of  Shakespeare's  matu- 
rity) there  is  a  hurry,  and  impatient  condensa- 
tion, metaphor  running  into  metaphor,  thought 
on  the  heels  of  thought,  which  gives  (apart 
from  the  undoubted  corruption  of  the  text  as 
it  comes  to  us)  something  abrupt,  difficult, 
violent,  to  the  language  of  even  unimportant 
characters,  messengers  or  soldiers.  Thus,  the 
play  has  several  of  those  memorable  condensa- 
tions of  a  great  matter  into  a  little  compass,  of 

21 


22      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

which  Macduff's  "He  has  no  children!"  is  per- 
haps the  most  famous  in  literature;  together 
with  less  than  usual  of  mere  comment  on  life. 
If  here  and  there  a  philosophical  thought  meets 
us,  it  is  the  outcry  of  sensation  (as  in  the  mag- 
nificent words  which  sum  up  the  vanity  of  life 
in  the  remembrance  of  the  dusty  ending) 
rather  than  a  reflection,  in  any  true  sense  of 
the  word.  Of  pathos,  even,  there  is,  on  the 
whole,  not  much.  In  that  scene  from  which 
I  have  just  quoted  the  crowning  words,  there 
is,  I  think,  a  note  of  pathos  beyond  which 
language  cannot  go;  and  in  the  scene  which 
leads  up  to  it,  a  scene  full  of  the  most 
delicate  humour,  the  humour  born  of  the 
unconscious  nearness  of  things  pitiful,  there 
is  something  truly  pathetic,  a  pathos  which 
clings  about  all  Shakespeare's  portraits  of 
children.  But  elsewhere,  even  in  places 
where  we  might  expect  it,  there  is  but  little 
sign  of  a  quality  with  which  it  was  not  in 
Shakespeare's  plan  to  lighten  the  terror  or 
soften  the  hardness  of  the  impression  one  re- 
ceives from  this  sombre  play.  Terror:  that 
was  the  effect  at  which  he  seems  to  have  aimed; 
terror  standing  out  vividly  against  a  back- 


MACBETH  23 

ground  of  obscure  and  yet  more  dreadful  mys- 
tery. The  "root  of  horror,"  from  which  the 
whole  thing  grows,  has  been  planted,  one  be- 
comes aware,  in  hell:  do  the  supernatural 
solicitings  merely  foreshow,  or  do  they  really 
instigate,  the  deeds  to  which  they  bear  wit- 
ness? Omens  blacken  every  page.  An  "Old 
Man"  is  brought  into  the  play  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  become  the  appropriate  mouth- 
piece of  the  popular  sense  of  the  strange  dis- 
turbance in  the  order  of  nature.  Macbeth 
is  the  prey  to  superstition,  and  it  seems  really 
as  if  a  hand  other  than  his  own  forces  him  for- 
ward on  the  road  to  destruction.  In  no  other 
play  of  Shakespeare's,  not  even  in  Hamlet,  is 
the  power  of  spiritual  agencies  so  present  with 
us;  nowhere  is  Fate  so  visibly  the  handmaid 
or  the  mistress  of  Retribution.  In  such  a  play 
it  is  no  wonder  that  pathos  is  swallowed  up  in 
terror,  and  that  the  only  really  frank  aban- 
donment to  humour  is  in  an  interlude  of  ghastly 
pleasantry,  the  Shakespearean  authorship  of 
which  has  been  doubted. 

In  this  brief  and  rapid  play,  where  the 
action  has  so  little  that  is  superfluous,  and  all  is 
ordered  with  so  rigid  a  concentration,  the  in- 


24      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

terest  is  still  further  narrowed  and  intensified 
by  being  directed  almost  wholly  upon  two 
persons.  Macbeth  and  Lady  Macbeth  fill  the 
stage.  In  painting  them  Shakespeare  has 
expended  his  full  power.  He  has  cared  to  do 
no  more  than  sketch  the  other  characters.  As 
in  one  of  Michelangelo's  sketches,  the  few 
lines  of  the  drawing  call  up  a  face  as  truly 
lifelike  as  that  which  fronts  us  in  the  com- 
pleted picture.  But  in  the  play  these  subor- 
dinate figures  are  forgotten  in  the  absorbing 
interest  of  the  two  primary  ones.  The  real 
conflict,  out  of  which  the  action  grows,  is  the 
conflict  between  the  worse  and  better  natures 
of  these  two  persons;  the  real  tragedy  is  one 
of  conscience,  and  the  murder  of  Duncan,  the 
assassination  of  Banquo,  the  slaughters  with 
which  the  play  is  studded,  are  but  the  out- 
ward signs,  the  bloody  signatures,  of  the  ter- 
rible drama  which  is  going  on  within. 

When  Macbeth,  returning  victorious  from 
the  field  of  battle,  is  met  by  the  witches'  pre- 
diction: "All  hail,  Macbeth,  that  shalt  be  king 
hereafter!"  is  it  not  curious  that  his  thoughts 
should  turn  with  such  astonishing  promptitude 
to  the  idea  of  murder?  The  tinder,  it  is  evi- 


MACBETH  25 

dent,  is  lying  ready,  and  it  needs  but  a  spark 
to  set  the  whole  fire  aflame.  We  learn  from  his 
wife's  analysis  of  his  character  that  he  is  am- 
bitious, discontented,  willing  to  do  wrong 
in  order  to  attain  to  greatness,  yet,  like  so 
many  of  the  unsuccessful  criminals,  hampered 
always  in  the  way  of  wrong-doing  by  an  incon- 
venient afterthought  of  virtue.  He  has  never 
enough  of  it  to  stay  his  hand  from  the  deed, 
but  he  has  just  sufficient  to  sicken  him  of  the 
crime  when  only  half-way  through  it.  He 
may  plan  and  plot,  but  at  the  last  he  acts 
always  on  impulse,  and  is  never  able  to  pur- 
sue a  deliberate  course  coolly.  He  knows  him- 
self well  enough  to  say,  once: 

No  boasting  like  a  fool : 
This  deed  I'll  do  before  the  purpose  cool. 

Before  the  purpose  cool!  that  is  always  the 
danger  to  fear,  in  a  nature  of  this  unstable  sort. 
He  can  murder  Duncan,  but  he  cannot  bring 
himself  to  return  and  face  his  work,  though  his 
own  safety  depends  upon  it.  It  is  the  woman 
who  goes  back  into  the  fatal  chamber,  to  which 
he  dares  not  return.  No  sooner  has  he  done 
the  deed  than  he  wishes  it  undone.  His  con- 


26      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

science  is  awake  now,  awake  and  maundering. 
With  the  dawn  courage  returns;  he  is  able  to 
play  his  part  with  calmness,  a  new  impulse 
having  taken  the  place  of  the  last  one.  Re- 
morse, for  the  present,  is  put  aside.  He  plots 
Banquo's  death  deliberately,  and  is  almost  gay 
in  hinting  it  to  his  wife.  Now,  his  feeling 
seems  to  be,  we  shall  be  safe :  no  need  for  more 
crime!  And  then,  perhaps,  there  will  be  no 
more  of  the  "terrible  dreams." 

When  Banquo's  ghost  appears,  Macbeth's 
acting  breaks  down.  He  is  in  the  hold  of  a 
fresh  sensation,  and  horror  and  astonishment 
overwhelm  all.  After  having  thought  himself 
at  last  secure!  It  is  always  through  the  super- 
stitious side  of  his  nature  that  Macbeth  is 
impressible.  His  agitation  at  the  sight  of  the 
ghost  of  Banquo  is  not,  I  think,  a  trick  of  the 
imagination,  but  the  horror  of  a  man  who  sees 
the  actual  ghost  of  the  man  he  has  slam.  Thus 
he  cannot  reason  it  away,  as,  before  the  fancied 
dagger  (a  heated  brain  conjuring  up  images 
of  its  own  intents)  he  can  exclaim:  " There's 
no  such  thing!"  The  horror  fastens  deeply 
upon  him,  and  he  goes  sullenly  onward  in  the 
path  of  blood,  seeing  now  that  there  is  no  re- 


MACBETH  27 

turning  by  a  way  so  thronged  with  worse  than 
memories. 

Since  his  initiate  step  in  this  path,  Mac- 
beth has  never  been  free  from  the  mockery  of 
desire  to  overcome  his  fears,  to  be  at  peace  in 
evil-doing,  to  "  sleep  in  spite  of  thunder." 
But  his  mind  becomes  more  and  more  divided 
against  itself,  and  the  degradation  of  his 
nature  goes  on  apace.  When  we  see  him 
finally  at  bay  in  his  fortress,  he  is  broken  down 
by  agitation,  and  the  disturbance  of  all  within 
and  without,  into  a  state  of  savage  distraction, 
in  which  the  individual  sense  of  guilt  seems  to 
be  lost  in  a  sullen  growth  of  moody  distrust 
and  of  somewhat  aimless  ferocity.  He  is  in 
that  state  in  which  "the  grasshopper  is  a  bur- 
den," and  every  event  presents  itself  as  an 
unbearable  irritation.  His  nerves  are  un- 
strung; he  bursts  out  into  precipitate  and 
causeless  anger  at  the  mere  sight  of  the  mes- 
senger who  enters  to  him.  One  sees  his  mental 
and  bodily  collapse  in  the  impossibility  of  con- 
trolling the  least  whim.  He  calls  for  his 
armour,  has  it  put  on,  pulls  it  off,  bids  it  be 
brought  after  him.  He  talks  to  the  doctor 
about  the  affairs  of  war,  and  plays  grimly  on 


28      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

medical  terms.  He  dares  now  to  confess  to 
himself  how  weary  he  is  of  everything  beneath 
the  sun,  and  seeks  in  vain  for  what  may  "min- 
ister to  a  mind  diseased."  When,  on  a  cry  of 
women  from  within,  he  learns  that  his  wife  is 
dead,  he  can  speak  no  word  of  regret.  "She 
should  have  died  hereafter;"  that  is  all,  and  a 
moralization.  He  has  "supped  full  with  hor- 
rors," and  the  taste  of  them  has  begun  to  pall. 
There  remains  now  only  the  release  of  death. 
As  prophecy  after  prophecy  comes  to  its  ful- 
filment, and  the  last  hope  is  lost,  desperation 
takes  the  place  of  confidence.  When  finally, 
he  sees  the  man  before  him  by  whom  he  knows 
that  he  is  to  die,  his  soldier's  courage  rises  at  a 
taunt,  and  he  fights  to  the  end. 

Nothing  in  his  life 
Became  him  like  the  leaving  it. 

The  "  note,"  as  it  may  be  called,  of  Macbeth 
is  the  weakness  of  a  bold  mind,  a  vigorous 
body;  that  of  Lady  Macbeth  is  the  strength 
of  a  finely-strung  but  perfectly  determined 
nature.  She  dominates  her  husband  by  the 
persistence  of  an  irresistible  will;  she  herself, 
her  woman's  weakness,  is  alike  dominated 


MACBETH  29 

by  the  same  compelling  force.  Let  the  effect 
on  her  of  the  witches'  prediction  be  contrasted 
with  the  effect  on  Macbeth.  In  Macbeth 
there  is  a  mental  conflict,  an  attempt,  however 
feeble,  to  make  a  stand  against  the  temp- 
tation. But  the  prayer  of  his  wife  is  not  for 
power  to  resist,  but  for  power  to  carry  out,  the 
deed.  The  same  ambitions  that  were  slumber- 
ing in  him  are  in  her  stirred  by  the  same  spark 
into  life.  The  flame  runs  through  her  and  pos- 
sesses her  in  an  instant,  and  from  the  thought 
to  its  realization  is  but  a  step.  Like  all 
women,  she  is  practical,  swift  from  starting- 
point  to  goal,  imperious  in  disregard  of  hin- 
drances that  may  lie  in  the  way.  But  she  is 
resolute,  also,  with  a  determination  which 
knows  no  limits;  imaginative,  too  (imagina- 
tion being  to  her  in  the  place  of  virtue)  and  it 
is  this  she  fears,  and  it  is  this  that  wrecks  her. 
Her  prayer  to  the  spirits  that  tend  on  mortal 
thoughts  shows  by  no  means  a  mind  steeled 
to  compunction.  Why  should  she  cry: 

Stop  up  the  access  and  passage  to  remorse! 

if  hers  were  a  mind  in  which  no  visitings  of  pity 
had  to  be  dreaded?  Her  language  is  fervid, 


30      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

sensitive,  and  betrays  with  her  first  words  the 
imagination  which  is  her  capacity  for  suffer- 
ing. She  is  a  woman  who  can  be  "  magnifi- 
cent in  sin,"  but  who  has  none  of  the  callous- 
ness which  makes  the  comfort  of  the  criminal; 
not  one  of  the  poisonous  women  of  the  Renais- 
sance, who  smiled  complacently  after  an  assas- 
sination, but  a  woman  of  the  North,  in  whom 
sin  is  its  own  "  first  revenge."  She  can  do  the 
deed,  and  she  can  do  it  triumphantly;  she  can 
even  think  her  prayer  has  been  answered; 
but  the  horror  of  the  thing  will  change  her 
soul,  and  at  night,  when  the  will,  that  sup- 
ported her  indomitable  mind  by  day,  slumbers 
with  the  overtaxed  body,  her  imagination 
(the  soul  she  has  in  her  for  her  torture)  will 
awake  and  cry  at  last  aloud.  On  the  night 
of  the  murder  it  is  Macbeth  who  falters;  it 
is  he  who  wishes  that  the  deed  might  be  un- 
done, she  who  says  to  him 

These  deeds  must  not  be  thought 
After  these  ways;  so,  it  will  make  us  mad; 

but  to  Macbeth  (despite  the  "terrible  dreams") 
time  dulls  the  remembrance  from  its  first 
intensity;  he  has  not  the  fineness  of  nature 


MACBETH  31 

that  gives  the  power  of  suffering  to  his  wife. 
Guilt  changes  both,  but  him  it  degrades. 
Hers  is  not  a  nature  that  can  live  in  degrada- 
tion. To  her  no  degradation  is  possible. 
Her  sin  was  deliberate;  she  marched  straight 
to  her  end;  and  the  means  were  mortal, 
not  alone  to  the  man  who  died,  but  to  her. 
Macbeth  could  as  little  comprehend  the  depth 
of  her  suffering  as  she  his  hesitancy  in  a  deter- 
mined action.  It  is  this  fineness  of  nature, 
this  over-possession  by  imagination,  which 
renders  her  interesting,  elevating  her  punish- 
ment into  a  sphere  beyond  the  comprehension 
of  a  vulgar  criminal. 

In  that  terrible  second  scene  of  Act  II,  per- 
haps the  most  awe-inspiring  scene  that  Shake- 
speare ever  wrote,  the  splendid  qualities  of 
Lady  Macbeth  are  seen  in  their  clearest  light. 
She  has  taken  wine  to  make  her  bold,  but  there 
is  an  exaltation  in  her  brain  beyond  anything 
that  wine  could  give.  Her  calmness  is  indeed 
unnatural,  over-strained,  by  no  means  so 
composed  as  she  would  have  her  husband 
think.  But  having  determined  on  her  pur- 
pose, there  is  with  her  no  returning,  no  thought 
of  return.  It  is  with  a  burst  of  real  anger,  of 


32      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

1 
angry  contempt,  that  she  cries  "  Give  me  the 

daggers!"  and  her  exaltation  upholds  her  as 
she  goes  back  and  faces  the  dead  man  and  the 
sleeping  witnesses.  She  can  even,  as  she 
returns,  hear  calmly  the  knocking  that  speaks 
so  audibly  to  the  heart  of  Macbeth,  taking 
measures  for  their  safety  if  anyone  should 
enter.  She  can  even  look  resolutely  at  her 
bloody  hands,  and  I  imagine  she  half  believes 
her  own  cynical  words  when  she  says: 

A  little  water  clears  us  of  this  deed: 
How  easy  is  it  then! 

Her  will,  her  high  nature  (perverted,  but  not 
subdued)  her  steeled  sensitiveness,  the  intoxi- 
cation of  crime  and  of  wine,  sustain  her  in  a 
forced  calmness  which  she  herself  little  sus- 
pects will  ever  fail  her.  How  soon  it  does  fail, 
or  rather  how  soon  the  body  takes  revenge 
upon  the  soul,  is  seen  next  morning,  when, 
after  overacting  her  part  in  the  famous 
words,  "What,  in  our  house?"  she  falls  in  a 
swoon,  by  no  means  counterfeit,  we  may  be 
sure,  though  Macbeth,  by  his  disregard  of  it, 
seems  to  think  so.  After  this,  we  see  her  but 
rarely.  A  touch  of  the  deepest  melancholy 


MACBETH  33 

("  Nought's  had,  all's  spent!")  marks  the  few 
words  spoken  to  herself  as  she  waits  for  Mac- 
beth on  the  night  which  is,  though  unknown 
to  her,  to  be  fatal  to  Banquo.  No  sooner 
has  Macbeth  entered  than  she  greets  him  in 
the  old  resolute  spirit;  and  again  on  the 
night  of  the  banquet  she  is,  as  ever,  full  of 
bitter  scorn  and  contempt  for  the  betraying 
weakness  of  her  husband,  prompt  to  cover 
his  confusion  with  a  plausible  tale  to  the  guests. 
She  is  still  mistress  of  herself,  and  only  the 
weariness  of  the  few  words  she  utters  after 
the  guests  are  gone,  only  the  absence  of  the 
reproaches  we  are  expecting,  betray  the  change 
that  is  coming  over  her.  One  sees  a  trace  of 
lassitude,  that  is  all. 

From  this  point  Lady  Macbeth  drops  out  of 
the  play,  until,  in  the  fifth  act,  we  see  her  for 
the  last  time.  Even  now  it  is  the  body  rather 
than  the  soul  that  has  given  way.  What 
haunts  her  is  the  smell  and  sight  of  the  blood, 
the  physical  disgust  of  the  thing.  "All  the 
perfumes  of  Arabia  will  not  sweeten  this  little 
hand."  One  hears  the  self-pitying  note  with 
which  she  says  the  words.  Even  now,  even 
when  unconscious,  her  scorn  still  bites  at  the 


34      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

feebleness  of  her  husband.  The  will,  in  this 
shattered  body,  is  yet  unbroken.  There  is  no 
repentance,  no  regret,  only  the  intolerable 
vividness  of  accusing  memory;  the  sight,  the 
smell,  ever  present  to  her  eyes  and  nostrils. 
It  has  been  thought  that  the  words  "  Hell  is 
murky!"  the  only  sign,  if  sign  it  be,  of  fear 
at  the  thought  of  the  life  to  come,  are  probably 
spoken  in  mocking  echo  of  her  husband. 
Even  if  not,  they  are  a  passing  shudder.  It 
is  enough  for  her  that  her  hands  still  keep  the 
sensation  of  the  blood  upon  them.  The 
imagination  which  stands  to  her  in  the  place 
of  virtue  has  brought  in  its  revenge,  and 
for  her  too  there  is  left  only  the  release  of  death. 
She  dies,  not  of  remorse  at  her  guilt,  but 
because  she  has  miscalculated  her  power  of 
resistance  to  the  scourge  of  an  over-acute 
imagination. 

1889. 


III.    TWELFTH  NIGHT 

THE  play  of  Twelfth  Night,  coming  midway 
in  the  career  of  Shakespeare,  perhaps  just 
between  As  You  Like  It,  the  Arcadian  comedy, 
and  All's  Well  That  Ends  Well,  a  comedy  in 
name,  but  kept  throughout  on  the  very  edge 
of  tragedy,  draws  up  into  itself  the  separate 
threads  of  wit  and  humour  from  the  various 
plays  which  had  preceded  it,  weaving  them  all 
into  a  single  texture.  It  is  in  some  sort  a 
farewell  to  mirth,  and  the  mirth  is  of  the  finest 
quality,  an  incomparable  ending.  Shakespeare 
has  done  greater  things,  but  nothing  more 
delightful.  One  might  fancy  that  the  play 
had  been  composed  in  a  time  of  special  comfort 
and  security,  when  soul  and  body  were  in  per- 
fect equipoise,  and  the  dice  of  circumstance 
had  fallen  happily.  A  golden  mean,  a  sweet 
moderation,  reigns  throughout.  Here  and 
there,  hi  the  more  serious  parts  of  the  dialogue, 
we  have  one  of  Shakespeare's  most  beautiful 
touches,  as  in  the  divine  opening  lines,  in 

35 


36      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

Viola's  story  of  the  sister  who  "never  told  her 
love,"  and  in  much  of  that  scene;  but  in 
general  the  fancy  is  moderated  to  accord  with 
the  mirth,  and  refrains  from  sounding  a  very 
deep  or  a  very  high  note.  Every  element 
of  the  play  has  the  subtlest  links  with  its  fellow. 
Tenderness  melts  into  a  smile,  and  the  smile 
broadens  imperceptibly  into  laughter.  With- 
out ever  absolutely  mingling,  the  two  streams 
of  the  plot  flow  side  by  side,  following  the  same 
windings,  and  connected  by  tributary  currents. 
Was  there  ever  a  more  transparently  self- 
contradictory  theory  than  that  which  removes 
one  or  two  minute  textual  difficulties  by  the 
tremendous  impossibility  of  a  double  date? 
No  characteristic  of  the  play  is  more  unmis- 
takable than  its  perfect  unity  and  sure  swift- 
ness of  composition,  the  absolute  rondure  of 
the  0  of  Giotto,  done  at  a  single  sweep  of  the 
practised  arm.  It  is  such  a  triumph  of  con- 
struction that  it  is  hard,  in  reading  it,  to  get 
rid  of  the  feeling  that  it  has  been  written  at 
one  sitting. 

The  protagonist  of  the  play,  the  center  of 
our  amused  interest,  is  certainly  Malvolio, 
but  it  is  on  the  fortunes  of  Viola,  in  her  rela- 


TWELFTH  NIGHT  37 

tions  with  the  Duke  and  Olivia,  that  the  action 
really  depends.  The  Duke,  the  first  speaker 
on  the  stage,  is  an  egoist,  a  gentle  and  refined 
specimen  of  the  class  which  has  been  summed 
up  finally  in  the  monumental  character  of  Sir 
Willoughby  Patterne.  He  is  painted  without 
satire,  with  the  gentle  forbearance  of  the 
profound  and  indifferent  literary  artist;  shown, 
indeed,  almost  exclusively  on  his  best  side, 
yet,  though  sadly  used  as  a  lover,  he  awakens 
no  pity,  calls  up  no  champion  in  our  hearts. 
There  is  nothing  base  in  his  nature;  he  is 
incapable  of  any  meanness,  never  harsh  or 
unjust,  gracefully  prone  to  the  virtues  which 
do  not  take  root  in  self-denial,  to  facile  kind- 
ness, generosity,  sympathy;  he  can  inspire  a 
tender  love;  he  can  love,  though  but  with  a 
desire  of  the  secondary  emotions;  but  he  is 
self-contemplative,  in  another  sense  from  Mal- 
volio,  one  of  those  who  play  delicately  upon 
life,  whose  very  sorrows  have  an  elegant  melan- 
choly, the  sting  of  a  sharp  sauce  which  re- 
freshes the  palate  cloyed  by  an  insipid  dish: 
a  sentimental  egoist.  See,  for  a  revealing 
touch  of  Shakespeare's  judgment  on  him, 
his  shallow  words  on  woman's  incapacity  for 


38      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

love,  so  contradictory  to  what  he  has  said 
the  moment  before,  an  inconsistency  so  ex- 
quisitely characteristic;  both  said  with  the 
same  lack  of  vital  sincerity,  the  same  experi- 
mental and  argumentative  touch  upon  life. 
See  how  once  only,  in  the  fifth  act,  he  blows 
out  a  little  frothy  bluster,  a  show  of  manli- 
ness, harsh  words  but  used  as  goblin  tales  to 
frighten  children;  words  whose  vacillation  in 
the  very  act  comes  out  in  the  "  What  shall  I 
do?",  in  the  pompous  declaration,  "My 
thoughts  are  ripe  in  mischief",  in  the  side- 
touches,  like  an  admiring  glance  aside  in 
the  glass  at  his  own  most  effective  attitude, 
"  a  savage  jealousy  that  sometime  savours 
nobly,"  and  the  like.  When  he  coolly  gives 
up  the  finally-lost  Olivia,  and  turns  to  the 
love  and  sympathy  he  knows  are  to  be  found 
in  Viola  (as,  in  after  days,  Sir  Willoughby  will 
turn  to  his  Lsetitia)  the  shallowness  of  his 
nature  reveals  itself  in  broad  daylight. 

Olivia  is  the  complement  to  Orsino,  a  tragic 
sentimentalist,  with  emotions  which  it  pleases 
her  to  play  on  a  little  consciously,  yet  capable 
of  feeling,  of  a  pitch  beyond  the  Duke's  too 
loudly-speaking  passion.  Her  cloistral  mourn- 


TWELFTH  NIGHT  39 

ing  for  her  brother's  death  has  in  it  something 
theatrical,  not  quite  honest,  a  playing  with  the 
emotions.  She  makes  a  luxury  of  her  grief, 
and  no  doubt  it  loses  its  sting.  Then,  when  a 
new  face  excites  her  fancy,  the  artificial  con- 
dition into  which  she  has  brought  herself 
leaves  her  an  easy  prey,  by  the  natural  re- 
bound, to  a  possessing  imagination.  She 
becomes  violently  enamoured,  yet  honestly 
enough,  of  the  disguised  Viola,  and  her  passion 
survives  the  inevitable  substitution.  Shake- 
speare has  cleansed  her  from  the  stains  of  the 
old  story,  as  he  cleansed  the  heroine  of  Measure 
for  Measure:  the  note  of  wantonness  is  never 
struck.  She  is  too  like  the  Duke  ever  to  care 
for  him.  She  has  and  she  fills  her  place  in  the 
play,  but  the  place  is  a  secondary  one,  and  she 
is  without  power  over  our  hearts. 

We  turn  to  Viola  with  relief.  She  is  a 
true  woman,  exquisitely  gracious  in  that  silent 
attendance  upon  a  love  seeming  to  have  been 
chosen  in  vain ;  yet  we  can  find  for  her  no  place 
in  the  incomparable  company  of  Shakespeare's 
very  noblest  women.  She  has  a  touch  of  the 
sentimental,  and  will  make  a  good  wife  for 
the  Duke;  she  is  without  the  strength  of 


40      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

temperament  or  dignity  of  intellect  which 
would  scorn  a  delicately  sentimental  egoist. 
She  is  incapable  of  the  heroism  of  Helena,  of 
Isabella;  she  is  of  softer  nature,  of  slighter 
build  and  lowlier  spirit  than  they,  while  she  has 
none  of  the  overbrimming  life,  the  intense  and 
dazzling  vitality,  of  Rosalind.  Her  male 
disguise  is  almost  unapparent;  she  is  covered 
by  it  as  by  a  veil;  it  neither  spurs  her  lips  to 
sauciness,  as  with  Rosalind,  nor  tames  her 
into  infinite  dainty  fears,  as  with  Imogen; 
she  is  here,  as  she  would  be  always,  quiet, 
secure,  retiring  yet  scarcely  timid,  with  a 
pleasant  playfulness  breaking  out  now  and 
then,  the  effect,  not  of  high  spirits,  but  of  a 
whimsical  sense  of  her  secret  when  she  feels 
safe  in  it,  coming  among  women.  Without 
any  of  the  more  heroic  lineaments  of  her  sex, 
she  has  the  delicacy  and  tender  truth  that  we 
all  find  so  charming:  an  egoist  supremely, 
when  the  qualities  are  his  for  possessing. 
She  represents  the  typical  female  heart  offer- 
ing itself  to  the  man:  an  ingenuous  spectacle, 
with  the  dew  upon  it  of  early  morning.  She  is 
permitted  to  speak  the  tenderest  words  in 
which  pathos  crowns  and  suffuses  love;  and 


TWELFTH  NIGHT  41 

once,  under  the  spell  of  music,  her  small  voice 
of  low  and  tender  changes  rings  out  with  im- 
mortal clearness,  and  for  the  moment,  like  the 
words  she  says, 

It  gives  a  very  echo  to  the  seat 
Where  love  is  throned. 

Of  Malvolio  all  has  been  said,  and  but  little 
shall  be  said  of  him  here.  He  is  a  DoniQuixote 
in  the  colossal  enlargement  of  his  delusions, 
in  the  cruel  irony  of  Fate,  which  twists  topsy- 
turvy, making  a  mere  straw  in  the  wind  of 
him,  an  eminently  sober  and  serious  man  of  the 
clearest  uprightness,  unvisited  by  a  stray 
glimpse  of  saving  humour.  He  is  a  man  of 
self-sufficiency,  a  noble  quality  perilously  near 
to  self-complacency,  and  he  has  passed  the 
bounds  without  knowing  it.  His  unbend- 
ing solemnity  is  his  ruin.  Nothing  presents 
so  fair  a  butt  for  the  attack  of  a  guerilla- 
fighting  wit.  It  is  indeed  the  most  generally 
obnoxious  of  all  tolerable  qualities;  for  it  is 
a  living  rebuke  of  our  petty  levities,  and  it 
hints  to  us  of  a  conscious  superior.  Even  a 
soldier  is  not  required  to  be  always  on  drill. 
A  lofty  moralist,  a  starched  formalist,  like 


42      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA  , 

Malvolio,  is  salt  and  wormwood  in  the  cakes 
and  ale  of  gourmand  humanity.  It  is  with  the 
nicest  art  that  he  is  kept  from  rising  sheer 
out  of  comedy  into  a  tragic  isolation  of  atti- 
tude. He  is  restrained,  and  we  have  no 
heartache  in  the  laughter  that  seconds  the  most 
sprightly  of  clowns,  the  sharpest  of  serving- 
maids,  and  the  incomparable  pair  of  royster- 
ers,  Sir  Toby  and  Sir  Andrew. 

Shakespeare,  like  Nature,  has  a  tenderness 
for  man  in  his  cups,  and  will  not  let  him  come 
to  grief.  Sir  Toby's  wit  bubbles  up  from  no 
fountain  of  wisdom;  it  is  shallow,  radically 
bibulous,  a  brain-fume  blown  from  a  mere 
ferment  of  wits.  His  effect  is  truly  and  purely 
comic;  but  it  is  rather  from  the  way  in  which 
the  playwright  points  and  places  him  than  from 
his  own  comic  genius;  hi  this  how  unlike 
Falstaff,  who  appears  to  owe  nothing  to  cir- 
cumstances, but  to  escape  from  and  dominate 
his  creator.  Sir  Toby  is  the  immortal  type  of 
the  average  "  funny  fellow  "  and  boon-com- 
panion of  the  clubs  or  the  alehouse;  you  may 
meet  him  any  day  in  the  street,  with  his 
portly  build,  red  plump  cheeks,  and  merry 
eyes  twinkling  at  the  incessant  joke  of  life. 


TWELFTH  NIGHT  43 

His  mirth  is  facile,  contagious,  continual; 
it  would  become  wearisome  perhaps  at  too  long 
a  dose,  but  through  a  single  comic  scene  it  is 
tickling,  pervasive,  delightful.  Sir  Andrew 
is  the  grindstone  on  which  Sir  Toby  sharpens 
his  wit.  He  is  an  instance  of  a  natural  fool 
becoming  truly  comic  by  the  subtle  handling 
in  which  he  is  not  allowed  to  awaken  too 
keenly  either  pity  or  contempt.  In  life  he 
would  awaken  both.  He  is  a  harmless  sim- 
pleton, an  innocent  and  unobtrusive  bore, 
"a  Slender  grown  adult  in  brainlessness;'' 
and  he  is  shown  in  all  his  fatuity  without  a  note 
or  touch  of  really  ill-natured  sarcasm.  Shake- 
speare's humour  plays  round  him,  enveloping 
hmi  softly;  his  self-esteem  has  no  shock; 
unlike  Malvolio,  he  is  permitted  to  remain 
undeceived  to  the  end.  It  is  to  his  credit 
that  he  is  not  without  glimmerings  that  he  is 
a  fool.  The  kindness,  is,  that  the  conviction 
is  not  forced  upon  him  from  without. 

1889. 


IV.    MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE 

Measure  for  Measure  is  neither  the  last 
of  the  comedies  nor  the  first  of  the  tragedies. 
It  is  tragedy  and  comedy  together,  inextri- 
cably interfused,  coexistent  in  a  mutual  con- 
tradiction; such  a  tangled  web,  indeed,  as 
our  life  is,  looked  at  by  the  actors  in  it,  on  the 
level  of  its  action;  with  certain  suggestions, 
open  or  concealed,  of  the  higher  view,  the 
aspect  of  things  from  the  point  of  view  of  a 
tolerant  wisdom.  The  hidden  activity  of 
the  Duke,  working  for  ends  of  beneficent  jus- 
tice, hi  the  midst  of  the  ferment  and  corrup- 
tion of  the  seething  city;  this  figure  of  per- 
sonified Providence,  watchfully  cognizant  of 
act  and  motive,  has  been  conceived  by  Shake- 
speare (not  yet  come  to  his  darkest  mood, 
in  which  man  is  a  mere  straw  in  the  wind  of 
Destiny)  to  give  a  sense  of  security,  centred 
within  even  such  a  maze  as  this.  It  is  not  from 
Isabella  that  we  get  any  such  sense.  Her 
very  courage  and  purity  and  intellectual  light 

44 


MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  43 

do  but  serve  to  deepen  the  darkness,  when  we 
conceive  of  her  as  but  one  sacrifice  the  more. 
Just  as  Cordelia  intensifies  the  pity  and  terror 
of  King  Lear,  so  would  Isabella's  helpless 
virtues  add  the  keenest  ingredient  to  the  cup 
of  bitterness,  but  for  the  Duke.  He  is  a 
foretaste  of  Prospero,  a  Prospero  working 
greater  miracles  without  magic ;  and  he  guides 
us  through  the  labyrinths  of  the  play  by  a 
clue  of  which  he  has  the  secret. 

That  Measure  for  Measure  is  a  "  painful" 
play  (as  Coleridge  called  it)  cannot  be  denied. 
There  is  something  base  and  sordid  in  the 
villany  of  its  actors;  a  villany  which  has  noth- 
ing of  the  heroism  of  sin.  In  Angelo  we  have 
the  sharpest  lesson  that  Shakespeare  ever 
read  self -righteousness.  In  Claudio  we  see 
a  "  gilded  youth  "  with  the  gilding  rubbed 
off.  From  Claudio's  refined  wantonness  we 
sink  deeper  and  deeper,  through  Lucio,  who 
is  a  Claudio  by  trade,  and  without  even  the 
pretence  of  gilding,  to  the  very  lowest  depth 
of  a  city's  foulness  and  brutality.  The  "hu- 
mours" of  bawd  and  hangman  and  the  cus- 
tomers of  both  are  painted  with  as  angry  a 
hand  as  Hogarth's;  bitten  in  with  the  etcher's 


46      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

acid,  as  if  into  the  very  flesh.  Even  Elbow, 
"  a  simple  constable,"  a  Dogberry  of  the 
lower  dregs,  struts  and  maunders  before  us 
with  a  desperate  imbecility,  in  place  of  the 
engaging  silliness,  where  silliness  seemed  a 
hearty  comic  virtue,  of  the  "  simple  constable  " 
of  the  earlier  play.  In  the  astonishing  por- 
trait of  Barnardine  we  come  to  the  simply 
animal  man;  a  portrait  which  in  its  savage 
realism,  brutal  truth  to  nature,  cynical  insight 
into  the  workings  of  the  contended  beast  in 
man,  seems  to  anticipate  some  of  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  modern  Realistic  novel.  In  the 
midst  of  this  crowd  of  evil-doers  walks  the 
Duke,  hooded  body  and  soul  in  his  friar's 
habit;  Escalus,  a  solitary  figure  of  broad  and 
sturdy  uprightness;  Isabella,  "  a  thing  enskied 
and  sainted,"  the  largest-hearted  and  clearest- 
eyed  heroine  of  Shakespeare;  and  apart, 
veiled  from  good  and  evil  in  a  perpetual  loneli- 
ness of  sorrow,  Mariana,  in  the  moated  grange. 
In  the  construction  of  this  play  Shakespeare 
seems  to  have  put  forth  but  a  part  of  his 
strength,  throwing  his  full  power  only  into  the 
great  scenes,  and  leaving,  with  less  than  his 
customary  care  (in  strong  contrast  to  what  we 


MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  47 

note  in  Twelfth  Night)  frayed  ends  and  edges 
of  action  and  of  characterization.  The  con- 
clusion, particularly,  seems  hurried,  and  the 
disposal  of  Angelo  inadequate.  I  cannot  but 
think  that  Shakespeare  felt  the  difficulty,  the 
impossibility,  of  reconciling  the  end  which  his 
story  and  the  dramatic  conventionalities  re- 
quired with  the  character  of  Angelo  as  shown 
in  the  course  of  the  play,  and  that  he  slurred 
over  the  matter  as  best  he  could.  With 
space  before  him  he  might  have  convinced  us, 
being  Shakespeare,  of  the  sincerity  of  Angelo's 
repentance  and  the  rightfulness  of  his  remis- 
sion; but  as  it  is,  crowded  as  all  this  convic- 
tion and  penitence  and  forgiveness  necessarily 
is  into  a  few  minutes  of  supplementary  action 
one  can  hardly  think  that  Coleridge  expressed 
the  natural  feeling  too  forcibly  in  declaring 
"the  strong  indignant  claim  of  justice"  to 
be  baffled  by  the  pardon  and  marriage  of 
Angelo.  Of  the  scenes  in  which  Angelo  appears 
as  the  prominent  actor  (the  incomparable 
second  and  fourth  scenes  of  the  second  act, 
the  first  the  temptation  of  Angelo,  the  second 
Angelo's  temptation  of  Isabella)  nothing  can 
be  said  but  that  Shakespeare  may  have 


48      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

equalled,  but  has  scarcely  exceeded  them, 
in  intensity  and  depth  of  natural  truth. 
These,  with  that  other  scene  between  Claudio 
and  Isabella,  make  the  play. 

It  is  part  of  the  irony  of  things  that  the 
worst  complication,  the  deepest  tragedy  in 
all  this  tortuous  action,  comes  about  by  the 
innocent  means  of  the  stainless  Isabella;  who 
also,  by  her  steadfast  heroism,  brings  about 
the  final  peace.  But  for  Isabella,  Claudio 
would  simply  have  died,  perhaps  meeting  his 
fate,  when  it  came,  with  a  desperate  flash  of 
his  father's  courage;  Angelo  might  have  lived 
securely  to  his  last  hour,  unconscious  of  his 
own  weakness,  of  the  fire  that  lurked  in  so 
impenetrable  a  flint.  Shakespeare  has  some- 
times been  praised  for  the  subtlety  with  which 
he  has  barbed  the  hook  for  Angelo,  hi  making 
Isabella's  very  chastity  the  keenest  of  tempta- 
tions. The  notion  is  not  peculiar  to  Shake- 
speare, but  was  hinted  at,  in  his  scrambling 
and  uncertain  way,  by  the  writer  of  the  old 
play  on  which  Measure  for  Measure  is  founded. 
In  truth,  I  do  not  see  what  other  course  was 
open  to  either  in  dealing  with  a  situation  which 
was  not  original  hi  Shakespeare  or  in  Whet- 


MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  49 

stone.  Angelo,  let  us  remember,  is  not  a 
hypocrite:  he  has  no  dishonourable  intention 
in  his  mind;  he  conceives  himself  to  be 
firmly  grounded  on  a  broad  basis  of  rectitude, 
and  in  condemning  Claudio  he  condemns  a 
sin  which  he  sincerely  abhors.  His  treatment 
of  the  betrothed  Mariana  would  probably 
be  in  his  own  eyes  an  act  of  frigid  justice;  it 
certainly  shows  a  man  not  sensually-minded, 
but  cold,  calculating,  likely  to  err,  if  he  errs 
at  all,  rather  on  the  side  of  the  miserly  virtues 
than  of  the  generous  sins.  It  is  thus  the 
nobility  of  Isabella  that  attracts  him;  her 
freedom  from  the  tenderest  signs  of  frailty, 
her  unbiassed  intellect,  her  regard  for  justice, 
her  religious  sanctity;  and  it  is  on  his  noblest 
side  first,  the  side  of  him  that  can  respond 
to  these  qualities,  that  he  is  tempted.  I  know 
of  nothing  more  consummate  than  the  way 
in  which  his  mind  is  led  on,  step  by  step, 
towards  the  trap  still  hidden  from  him,  the 
trap  prepared  by  the  merciless  foresight  of 
the  chance  that  tries  the  professions  and  the 
thoughts  of  men.  Once  tainted,  the  corrup- 
tion is  over  him  like  leprosy,  and  every  virtue 
withers  into  the  corresponding  form  of  vice. 


50      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

In  Claudio  it  is  the  same  touchstone,  Isabella's 
unconscious  and  misdirected  Ithuriel-spear, 
that  reveals  the  basest  forms  of  evil.  A  great 
living  painter  has  chosen  the  central  moment 
of  the  play,  the  moment  when  Claudio,  having 
heard  the  terms  on  which  alone  life  can  be 
purchased,  murmurs,  "Death  is  a  fearful 
thing,"  and  Isabella,  not  yet  certain,  yet 
already  with  the  fear  astir  in  her  of  her  brother's 
weakness  replies,  "And  shamed  life  a  hate- 
ful;" it  is  this  moment  which  Holman  Hunt 
brings  before  us  in  a  canvas  that,  like  his  scene 
from  The  Two  Gentlemen  of  Verona,  is  not  only 
a  picture  but  an  interpretation.  Against  the 
stained  and  discoloured  wall  of  his  dungeon, 
apple-blossoms  and  blue  sky  showing  through 
the  grated  window  behind  his  delicate  di- 
sheveled head,  Claudio  stands;  a  lute  tied 
with  red  ribbons  hangs  beside  him,  a  rose 
has  fallen  on  the  dark  garments  at  his  feet, 
one  hand  plays  with  his  fetters  (with  how 
significant  a  gesture!)  the  other  hand  pinches, 
idly  affectionate,  the  two  intense  hands  that 
Isabella  has  laid  upon  his  breast;  he  is  think- 
ing, where  to  debate  means  shame,  balancing 
the  arguments;  and  with  pondering  eyes, 


MEASURE  FOR  MEASURE  51 

thrusting  his  tongue  towards  the  corner  of  his 
just-parted  lips  with  a  movement  of  exquisite 
naturalness,  he  halts  in  indecision :  all  his  mean 
thoughts  are  there,  in  that  gesture,  in  those 
eyes;  and  in  the  warm  and  gracious  youth 
of  his  whole  aspect,  passionately  superficial 
and  in  love  with  life,  there  is  something  of  the 
pathos  of  things  "  sweet,  not  lasting,"  a  fragile, 
an  unreasonable,  an  inevitable  pathos.  Isa- 
bella fronts  him,  an  embodied  conscience, 
all  her  soul  in  her  eyes.  Her  eyes  read  him, 
plead  with  him,  they  are  suppliant  and  judge; 
her  intense  fearfulness,  the  intolerable  doubt 
of  her  brother's  honour,  the  anguish  of  hope 
and  fear,  shine  in  them  with  a  light  as  of  tears 
frozen  at  the  source.  In  a  moment,  with 
words  on  his  lips  whose  far-reaching  imagina- 
tion is  stung  into  hull  and  from  him  by  the 
sharpness  of  the  impending  death,  he  will  have 
stooped  below  the  reach  of  her  contempt, 
uttering  those  words.  "  Sweet  sister,  let  me 
live!" 

After  all,  the  final  word  of  Shakespeare  in 
this  play  is  mercy;  but  it  is  a  mercy  which 
comes  of  the  consciousness  of  our  own  need 
of  it,  and  it  is  granted  and  accepted  in  humilia- 


52      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

tion.  The  lesson  of  mercy  taught  in  The 
Merchant  of  Venice  is  based  on  the  mutual 
blessing  of  its  exercise,  the  graciousness  of 
the  spirit  to  which  it  is  sign  and  seal. 

It  droppeth  as  the  gentle  rain  from  heaven 
Upon  the  place  beneath;  it  is  twice  blest; 
It  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes. 

Here,  the  claim  which  our  fellow-man  has  on 
our  commiseration  is  the  sad  claim  of  mutual 
guiltiness  before  an  absolute  bar  of  justice. 

How  would  you  be 

If  He,  which  is  the  top  of  judgment,  should 
But  judge  you  as  you  are? 

And  is  not  the  "  painfulness,"  which  im- 
presses us  in  this  sombre  play,  due  partly  to 
this  very  moral,  and  not  alone  to  the  circum- 
stances from  which  it  disengages  itself?  For 
it  is  so  "  painful "  to  think  that  we  are  no 
better  than  our  neighbours. 

1890. 


V.    THE  WINTER'S  TALE 

The  Winter's  Tale  is  a  typically  romantic 
drama,  a  "winter's  dream,  when  nights  are 
longest,"  constructed  in  defiance  of  proba- 
bilities, which  it  rides  over  happily.  It  has 
all  the  licence,  and  all  the  charm,  of  a  fairy 
tale,  while  the  matters  of  which  it  treats 
are  often  serious  enough,  ready  to  become 
tragic  at  any  moment,  and  with  much  of 
real  tragedy  in  them  as  it  is.  The  merciful 
spirit  of  Shakespeare  in  his  last  period,  grown 
to  repose  now  after  the  sharp  sunshine  and 
storm  of  his  earlier  and  middle  years,  the 
delicate  art  which  that  period  matured  in 
him,  seen  at  its  point  of  finest  delicacy  in  this 
play  and  in  The  Tempest,  alone  serve  to  restrain 
what  would  otherwise  be  really  painful  in  the 
griefs  and  mistaken  passions  of  the  perturbed 
persons  of  the  drama.  Something,  the  very 
atmosphere,  the  dawning  of  light  among  the 
clouds  at  their  blackest,  at  first  a  hint,  then 

53 


64      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

distinctly  a  promise,  of  things  coming  right 
at  last,  keeps  us  from  taking  all  these  dis- 
tresses, genuine  as  they  are,  too  seriously. 
It  is  all  human  life,  but  life  under  happier 
skies,  on  continents  where  the  shores  of 
Bohemia  are  washed  by  "faery  seas."  An- 
achronisms abound,  and  are  delightful.  That 
Delphos  should  be  an  island,  Giulio  Romano 
contemporary  with  the  Oracles,  that  Puritans 
should  sing  psalms  to  hornpipes,  and  a  sudden 
remembrance  call  up  the  name  of  Jove  or 
Proserpina  to  the  forgetful  lips  of  Christian- 
speaking  characters:  all  this  is  of  no  more 
importance  than  a  trifling  error  in  the  count 
of  miles  traversed  by  a  witch's  broomstick 
in  a  minute.  Too  probable  figures  would 
destroy  the  illusion,  and  the  error  is  a  separate 
felicity. 

It  is  quite  in  keeping  with  the  other  romantic 
characteristics  of  the  play,  that,  judged  by  the 
usual  standard  of  such  a  Romantic  as  Shake- 
speare himself,  it  should  be  constructed  with 
exceptional  looseness,  falling  into  two  very 
definite  halves,  the  latter  of  which  can  again, 
in  a  measure,  be  divided.  The  first  part, 
which  takes  place  in  Sicilia,  is  a  study  of 


THE  WINTER'S  TALE  55 

jealousy;  the  whole  interest  is  concentrated 
upon  the  relations  of  the  "usual  three,  husband 
and  wife  and  friend:"  Leontes,  Hermione, 
and  Polixenes.  The  jealousy  is  in  possession 
when  we  first  see  Leontes;  it  bursts  forth, 
flames  to  its  height,  almost  at  once;  in  its 
furious  heat  runs  through  its  whole  course  with 
the  devouring  speed  of  a  race-horse;  and  then 
has  its  downfall,  sudden  and  precipitate,  and 
so  dies  of  its  own  over-swiftness.  Act  III, 
Scene  2,  ends  the  first  part  of  the  play;  and 
with  the  third  scene  begins  the  second  part, 
taking  us  from  Sicilia,  where  the  widowed  and 
childless  king  is  left  mourning,  to  Bohemia, 
where  the  children,  not  long  born  when  we  last 
saw  Sicilia,  are  now  come  to  years  of  love. 
Then,  all  through  the  fourth  act,  we  are  with 
Florizel  and  Perdita;  a  sweet  pastoral,  varied 
with  the  dainty  knaveries  of  a  rogue  as  light- 
hearted  as  he  is  light-fingered;  the  pastoral, 
too,  coming  to  a  sudden  and  disastrous  end, 
not  without  a  doubtful  gleam  of  hope  for  the 
future.  With  Act  V  we  return  to  Sicilia, 
having  from  the  beginning  a  sense  that  things 
are  now  at  last  coming  to  a  desired  end. 
Leontes'  proved  faithfulness,  his  sixteen  years' 


56      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

burden  of  "saint-like  sorrow"  gives  him  the 
right,  one  feels,  to  the  happiness  that  is  so 
evidently  drawing  near.  All  does,  indeed, 
fall  well,  as  the  whole  company  comes  together 
at  the  court  of  Sicilia,  now  re-united  at 
last,  husband  with  his  lost  wife  (another 
Alcestis  from  the  grave)  father  and  mother 
with  child,  lover  with  lover  (the  course  of  true 
love  smooth  again)  friend  with  friend,  the  faith- 
ful servants  rewarded  with  each  other,  the 
worthless  likable  knave,  even,  in  a  good  way  of 
getting  on  in  the  world. 

The  principal  charm  in  The  Winter's  Tale, 
its  real  power  over  the  sources  of  delight,  lies 
in  the  two  women,  true  mother  and  daughter, 
whose  fortunes  we  see  at  certain  moments,  the 
really  important  crises  of  then*  lives.  Her- 
mione,  as  we  have  just  time  to  see  her  before 
the  blow  comes,  is  happy  wife  and  happy 
mother,  fixed,  as  it  seems,  in  a  settled  happi- 
ness. Grave,  not  gay,  but  with  a  certain  quiet 
playfulness,  such  as  so  well  becomes  stately 
women,  she  impresses  us  with  a  feeling,  partly 
of  admiration,  partly  of  attraction.  It  is 
with  a  sort  of  devoted  reverence  that  we  see 
her  presently,  patient,  yet  not  abject,  under  the 


57 


dishonouring  accusations  of  the  fool  "Her  lius- 
band.    "  Good  my  lords,"  she  can  say, 

I  am  not  prone  to  weeping,  as  our  sex 
Commonly  are;  the  want  of  which  vain  dew 
Perchance  shall  dry  your  pities;  but  I  have 
That  honourable  grief  lodged  here  which  burns 
Worse  than  tears  drown.    'Beseech  you  all,  my  lords 
With  thoughts  so  qualified  as  your  charities 
Shall  best  instruct  you,  measure  me:  and  so 
The  king's  will  be  performed. 

All  Hermione  is  in  those  words,  no  less  than 
in  the  calm  forthrightness  of  her  defence, 
spoken  afterwards  in  the  Court  of  Justice. 
She  has  no  self-consciousness,  is  not  aware 
that  at  any  time  in  her  life  she  is  heroic;  "a 
very  woman,"  merely  simple,  sincere,  having 
in  reverence  the  sanctity  of  wifehood  and  in 
respect  the  dignity  of  queenship.  In  Perdita, 
the  daughter  so  long  lost  and  in  the  end  so 
happily  restored  to  her,  we  see,  in  all  the 
gaiety  of  youth,  the  frank  innocence  and  the 
placid  strength  of  Hermione.  She  is  the  in- 
carnation of  all  that  is  delightful  and  desir- 
able in  girlhood,  as  her  mother  incarnates  for 
us  the  perfect  charm  of  mature  woman. 
And,  coming  before  us  where  she  does,  a  shep- 
herdess among  pastoral  people,  "the  queen  of 


58     STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

curds  and  cream,"  she  seems  to  sum  up  and 
immortalize,  in  one  delicious  figure,  our  holi- 
day loves,  our  most  vivid  sensations  of  country 
pleasures.  It  is  the  grace  of  Florizel  that  he 
loves  Perdita;  he  becomes  charming  to  us 
because  Perdita  loves  him.  In  these  young 
creatures  the  old  passion  becomes  new;  and 
for  an  hour  we  too  are  as  if  we  had  never  loved, 
but  are  now  in  the  first  moment  of  the  unique 
discovery. 

This  charm  of  womanhood,  this  purely 
delightful  quality,  of  which  the  play  has  so 
much,  though  it  remains,  I  think,  our  chief 
memory  after  reading  or  seeing  the  course  of 
action,  is  not,  we  must  remember,  the  only 
quality,  the  whole  course  of  the  action.  Be- 
sides the  ripe  comedy,  characteristic  of  Shake- 
speare at  his  latest,  which  indeed  harmonizes 
admirably  with  the  idyl  of  love  to  which  it 
serves  as  background,  there  is  also  a  harsh 
exhibition,  in  Leontes,  of  the  meanest  of 
the  passions,  an  insane  jealousy,  petty  and 
violent  as  the  man  who  nurses  it.  For  sheer 
realism,  for  absolute  insight  into  the  most 
cobwebbed  corners  of  our  nature,  Shake- 
speare has  rarely  surpassed  this  brief  study, 


THE  WINTER'S  TALE  59 

which,  in  its  total  effect,  does  but  throw  out 
in  brighter  relief  the  noble  qualities  of  the 
other  actors  beside  him,  the  pleasant  qualities 
of  the  play  they  make  by  their  acting.  With 
Othello  there  is  properly  no  comparison. 
Othello  could  no  more  comprehend  the  work- 
ings of  the  mind  of  Leontes  than  Leontes 
could  fathom  the  meaning  of  the  attitude  of 
Othello.  Leontes  is  meanly,  miserably,  de- 
gradedly  jealous,  with  a  sort  of  mental  alien- 
ation or  distortion,  a  disease  of  the  brain  like 
some  disease  of  vision,  by  which  he  still  "  sees 
yellow "  everywhere.  The  malady  has  its 
course,  disastrously,  and  then  ends  in  the  only 
way  possible:  by  an  agonizing  cure,  suddenly 
applied.  Are  those  sixteen  years  of  mourning 
we  may  wonder,  really  adequate  penance  for 
the  man?  Certainly  his  suffering,  like  his 
criminal  folly,  was  great ;  and  not  least  among 
the  separate  heartaches  in  that  purifying 
ministry  of  grief  must  have  been  the  memory 
of  the  boy  Mamillius,  the  noblest  and  dearest 
to  our  hearts  of  Shakespeare's  children.  When 
the  great  day  came  (is  it  fanciful  to  note?) 
Hermione  embraced  her  husband  in  silence; 
it  was  to  her  daughter  that  she  first  spoke. 


60      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

The  end,  certainly,  is  reconciliation,  mercy; 
mercy  extended  even  to  the  unworthy,  m  a 
spirit  of  something  more  than  mere  justice; 
as,  in  those  dark  plays  of  Shakespeare's  great 
penultimate  period,  the  end  came  with  a  sort 
of  sombre,  irresponsible  injustice,  an  outrage 
of  nature  upon  her  sons,  wrought  in  blind 
anger.  We  close  The  Winter's  Tale  with  a 
feeling  that  life  is  a  good  thing,  worth  living; 
that  much  trial,  much  mistake  and  error, 
may  be  endured  to  a  happier  issue,  though  the 
scars,  perhaps,  are  not  to  be  effaced.  This 
end,  on  such  a  note,  is  indeed  the  mood  in  which 
Shakespeare  took  leave  of  life;  in  no  weakly 
optimistic  spirit,  certainly,  but  with  the  air 
of  one  who  has  conquered  fortune,  not  fallen 
under  it;  with  a  wise  faith  in  the  ultimate 
wisdom  of  events. 

1890. 


iVL*  TITUS  ANDRONICUS  AND  THE 
TRAGEDY  OF  BLOOD 

IN  considering  the  main  question  in  regard 
to  Titus  Andronicus,  the  question  of  its 
Shakespearian  or  non-Shakespearian  author- 
ship, it  is  well  to  set  clearly  before  us  at  the 
outset  the  actual  external  evidence  which  we 
have.  There  is,  first,  the  fact  that  no  edition 
of  the  play  was  published  during  Shakespeare's 
lifetime  with  his  name  on  the  title-page.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  admitted  into  the  First 
Folio  in  company  with  the  mass  of  his  un- 
doubted work.  Meres,  in  his  Palladis  Tamia, 
published  in  1598,  refers  to  it  as  a  genuine 
play  of  Shakespeare:  " Witness  ...  for  trag- 
edy, his  Richard  II.,  Richard  III.,  Henry  IV.j 
King  John,  Titus  Andronicus,  and  Romeo 
and  Juliet."  But  Ravenscroft,  who  revived 
and  altered  the  play  in  the  time  of  James  II., 
says  in  his  preface  to  an  edition  published  in 
1687:  "I  have  been  told  by  some  anciently 
conversant  with  the  stage  that  it  was  not 

61 


62     STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

originally  his  [that  is,  Shakespeare's],  but 
brought  by  a  private  author  to  be  acted,  and 
he  only  gave  some  master-touches  to  one  or 
two  of  the  principal  characters." 

These  conflicting  statements  have  been  re- 
peatedly brought  into  harmony  by  believers  in 
Shakespeare's  entire  authorship,  part-author- 
ship, and  non-authorship,  so  as  to  prove  that 
Shakespeare  did  and  did  not  write  the  whole 
play,  and  that  he  wrote  some  part  of  it.  The 
fact  is,  they  are  at  the  mercy  of  every  theorizer, 
and  can  be  easily  bent  to  the  service  of  any 
predetermined  hypothesis.  The  absence  of 
Shakespeare's  name  from  the  title,  from  one 
point  of  view  a  strong  proof  of  an  un-Shake- 
spearian  authorship,  may  be  met  by  the  ob- 
vious cases  of  Richard  II.,  Richard  III.,  and 
other  unsigned  first  editions  of  undoubtedly 
genuine  plays.  The  attribution  of  the  play 
to  Shakespeare  by  Meres  and  the  editors  of 
the  First  Folio,  apparently  a  still  stronger 
proof  that  he  really  wrote  it,  may  be  almost  as 
easily  explained  by  supposing  Ravenscroft's 
tradition  to  be  true,  namely,  that  Shakespeare 
revised  for  the  stage  a  play  written  by  someone 
else,  and  that  his  name  thus  came  to  be  more 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  63 

and  more  closely  associated  with  it,  until  in 
time  it  was  supposed  to  be  entirely  his  work. 
It  is  on  the  internal  evidence,  and  the  internal 
evidence  alone,  that  the  burden  of  proof  really 
rests;  all  that  we  can  require  of  a  hypothesis 
intelligibly  constructed  from  the  evidence 
of  the  play  itself,  is  that  it  shall  not  be  at 
variance  with  the  few  external  facts,  on  a 
rational  interpretation  of  them. 

We  know,  almost  to  a  certainty,  that  Shake- 
speare's earliest  dramatic  work  consisted  in 
adapting  to  the  stage  old  plays  in  the  stock  of 
his  players'  company,  and  very  probably  in 
revising  new  works  by  unknown  and  unskil- 
ful playwrights.  The  second  and  third  parts 
of  King  Henry  VI  are  examples  to  our  hand 
of  the  former  manner  of  work:  Titus  Androni- 
cus  may  with  some  probability  be  conjectured 
to  be  an  instance  of  the  latter.  I  shall  try 
to  show  that  such  a  supposition  is  the  least 
violent  and  fanciful  that  we  can  well  make; 
accepting  Ravenscroft's  tradition,  not  from 
any  particular  reliance  on  its  probable  authen- 
ticity, but  because,  in  the  absence  of  any 
definite  information  to  the  contrary,  it  supplies 
me  with  a  theory  which  most  nearly  agrees 


64      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

with  my  impressions  after  a  careful  examina- 
tion of  the  text  itself. 

Titus  Andronicus  is  a  crude  and  violent,  yet 
in  certain  respects  superior,  study  in  that  pre- 
Shakespearian  school  which  Symonds  distin- 
guishes as  "The  Tragedy  of  Blood."  This 
Tragedy  of  Blood,  loud,  coarse,  violent,  ex- 
travagantly hyperbolical,  extravagantly  real- 
istic, was  the  first  outcome  of  a  significant  type 
of  Elizabethan  character,  a  hardy  boisterous- 
ness  of  nature,  a  strength  of  nerve  and  rough- 
ness of  taste,  to  which  no  exhibition  of  horror 
or  cruelty  could  give  anything  but  a  pleasur- 
able shock.  A  popular  audience  required 
strong  food,  and  got  it. 

t  In  the  early  days  of  the  drama,  when  play- 
wrights were  as  yet  new  to  their  trade,  and 
without  much  sense  of  its  dignity  as  an  art, 
this  popular  style  of  tragedy,  in  the  hands  of 
its  popular  manufacturers,  was  merely  horrible. 
There  were  blood  and  vengeance,  strong  pas- 
sions and  unrestrained  wantonness,  but  as 
yet  there  was  no  conception  of  the  difference 
between  the  horrible  and  the  terrible.  Later 
on,  in  the  hands  of  Shakespeare  and  Webster, 
the  old  rank  Tragedy  of  Blood,  the  favourite 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  65 

of  the  people,  became  transformed.  The 
horrible  became  the  terrible,  a  developed  art 
guided  the  playwright's  hand  in  covering  with 
a  certain  magnificence  the  bare  and  grim 
outlines  of  malevolence  and  murder.  It  was 
the  same  thing,  and  yet  new.  The  plot  of 
Hamlet  is  the  plot  of  a  Tragedy  of  Blood  of 
the  orthodox  school,  it  has  all  the  elements  of 
The  Spanish  Tragedy,  but  it  is  fused  by 
imagination,  humanized  by  philosophy,  while 
the  ungainly  melodrama  of  Kyd  is  a  mere 
skeleton,  dressed  in  ill-fitting  clothes,  but 
without  flesh  and  blood,  without  life. 
(  A  careful  examination  of  the  plays  left  to  us 
of  the  period  at  which  Titus  Andronicus  must 
have  been  written  will  show  us  the  exact  nature 
of  this  species  of  bloody  tragedy,  its  frequency, 
and  its  importance  and  influence.  There  may 
be  traced  a  foreshadowing  of  it  in  the  copious 
but  solemn  blood-shedding  of  the  very  first 
English  dramas,  the  pseudo-classical  Gorboduc 
and  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur.  In  these  plays, 
behind  the  cold  and  lengthy  speeches  of  the 
dramatic  personages,  a  wonderful  bustle  is 
supposed  to  be  going  on.  In  the  argument  to 
Gorboduc  we  read:  "The  sons  fell  to  division 


66      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

and  dissension.  The  younger  killed  the  elder. 
The  mother  .  .  .  killed  the  younger.  The 
people  .  .  .  rose  in  rebellion  and  slew  both 
father  and  mother.  The  nobility  assembled 
and  most  terribly  destroyed  the  rebels." 
In  The  Misfortunes  of  Arthur,  a  more  loath- 
some story,  filled  with  murder  and  rapine, 
serves  as  plot  to  a  tragedy  of  stately  speeches. 
As  yet  there  is  no  attempt  to  move  by  thrilling; 
a  would-be  classical  decorum  is  preserved  in 
the  midst  of  carnage,  and  the  sanguinary 
persons  of  the  drama  comment  on  their  actions 
with  singular  gravity.  But  while  the  barbar- 
ous violence  of  action  is  reported  as  having 
happened,  with  a  steady  suppression  of  sights 
and  details  of  blood,  it  is  already  potentially 
present  in  the  background,  in  readiness  for 
more  powerful  use  by  more  powerful  play- 
wrights. 

In  Jeronymo  (or  Hieronymo)  and  The  Spanish 
Tragedy,  in  reality  a  single  play  of  colossal 
proportions,  we  have  perhaps  the  first,  and  at 
once  the  foremost,  representative  of  the  genu- 
ine Tragedy  of  Blood.  The  stilted  and  formal 
phraseology  is  still  employed,  in  a  much  modi- 
fied and  improved  form,  but  there  is  a  real 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  67 

attempt  to  move  the  hardy  susceptibilities 
of  an  audience;  the  murders  occur  on  the  stage, 
and  are  executed  with  much  fierceness,  and 
the 'language  of  overblown  rant  is  at  least  in- 
tended (and  was  probably  found)  to  be  very 
stirring.  The  action  of  both  plays  is  slow, 
dull,  wearisome,  without  vivacity  or  natural- 
ness; the  language  alternates  from  the  ridicu- 
lously trivial  to  the  ridiculously  inflated;  while 
in  the  way  of  character  there  are  the  very 
slightest  indications  of  here  and  there  a  mood 
or  a  quality.  But  the  play  is  important  by 
reason  of  itp  position  at  the  head  of  a  long  line 
of  tragedies,  containing  more  than  one  of  the 
dramas  of  Marlowe,  and  scarcely  coming  to  an 
end  in  the  masterpiece  of  Webster. 

The  keynote  of  Kyd's  conception  of  tragedy 
is  murder.  Of  that  most  terrible  of  tragedies, 
the  tragedy  of  a  soul,  he  is  utterly  unconscious. 
Actual  physical  murder,  honourably  in  the 
duel,  or  treacherously  by  the  hand  of  one  of 
those  wonderful  villains  who  live  and  move 
and  have  their  being  on  the  Elizabethan  stage: 
this  is  the  very  abracadabra  of  his  craft.  A 
fine  situation  must  have  a  murder  or  two  in  it. 
A  troublesome  character  must  be  removed  by 


68      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

a  murder,  and  the  hero  and  heroine  must  also 
be  murdered,  for  the  sake  of  pathos,  and  a 
rounded  termination,  one  after  the  other. 
Last  of  all  the  villain,  or  the  two  or  three 
villains,  as  is  more  likely,  meet  with  unexpected 
violent  endings,  thereby  affording  a  moral 
lesson  of  the  most  practical  and  obvious  kind. 
In  addition  there  should  be  a  madness,  and 
several  atrocities.  Madness,  only  second 
though  distinctly  second,  to  murder,  is  an 
ingredient  in  many  of  these  plays,  notably 
The  Spanish  Tragedy.  It  was  Hieronymo's 
madness  that  attracted  that  greater  poet  of 
the  famous  "  additions, "  Jonson  or  another, 
who,  finding  it  a  thing  of  nought,  a  conven- 
tional, frigidly  rhetorical,  stage  lunacy,  left 
it  a  thing  of  pity  and  terror. 

Contemporaneous  with  The  Spanish  Tragedy 
but  less  representative  of  the  movement,  are 
several  other  melodramas;  the  anonymous 
Soliman  and  Perseda,  and  Peele's  Battle  of 
Alcazar,  for  instance.  Becoming,  not  more 
human,  but  more  artistic,  the  Tragedy  of 
Blood  found  a  willing  exponent  in  the  great, 
daring,  but  unballasted  genius  Marlowe,  and 
in  the  authors  of  Lust's  Dominion. 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  69 

It  is  to  this  period  that  Titus  Andronicus 
belongs;  a  period  of  more  mature  art,  more 
careful  construction,  more  power  of  character- 
ization, but  of  almost  identical  purpose. 
These  plays  are  distinguished  from  The  Spanish 
Tragedy  on  the  one  hand,  but  they  are  after  all 
still  more  sharply  distinguished  from  Lear, 
The  Duches  of  Malfi,  or  even  The  Revenger's 
Tragedy,  and  the  harsh,  powerful  dramas  of 
Marston,  on  the  other. 

Marlowe's  Jew  of  Malta  is  the  most  generally 
known  of  the  Tragedies  of  Blood,  and  it  is 
indeed  not  an  ill  specimen  of  the  developed 
style.  Marlowe,  who  originated  so  much, 
cannot  be  said  to  have  originated  this  manner. 
It  was  popular  before  his  time,  but,  finding  in 
it  a  certain  affinity  with  his  own  genius,  he 
attempted  it,  once,  perhaps  twice,  and  in 
stamping  it  in  his  own  mint  raised  its  currency. 
The  Jew  of  Malta  belongs  distinctly  to  the 
school  of  Kyd,  but  it  is  raised  above  its  pre- 
cursors, not  only  by  reason  of  the  frequent 
splendour  of  its  poetry,  but  still  more  by  the 
presence  of  a  finely-imagined  character,  an 
idealizing  of  the  passion  of  greed.  The  play 
is  Barabas;  with  his  entrance  and  exit  the 


70      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

good  in  it  comes  in  and  goes  out.  The  cap- 
tains, brutes,  and  bullies,  the  shadowy  Abigail, 
all  the  minor  characters,  are  hasty  sketches, 
rank  if  not  bodiless,  mere  foils  to  the  malevo- 
lent miser.  Barabas  himself,  as  it  ha»s  been 
so  often  pointed  out,  is  a  creation  only  hi 
the  first  two  acts,  where  he  foreshadows 
Shylock;  in  all  the  later  portion  of  the  play 
he  is  only  that  "  monster  with  a  large  painted 
nose  "  of  whom  Lamb  has  spoken.  Marlowe 
and  Shakespeare,  it  is  sad  to  recollect,  alike 
degraded  their  art,  Marlowe  more  than  once, 
Shakespeare  at  least  once,  to  please  the  ears  of 
the  groundlings.  The  intentional  debasement 
of  Barabas,  in  the  latter  half  of  The  Jew  of 
Malta,  from  a  creation  into  a  caricature,  is 
only  equalled,  but  it  is  equalled,  by  that  similar 
debasement  of  Falstaff  in  The  Merry  Wives  of 
Windsor,  from  the  prophet  and  philosopher 
of  this  world's  cakes  and  ales  into  an  imbecile 
buffoon,  helpless,  witless,  and  ridiculous. 

Lust's  Dominion,  a  play  issued  under  the 
name  of  Marlowe,  but  assigned  by  Mr.  Collier, 
with  great  probability,  to  Dekker,  Haughton, 
and  Day,  is  a  play  of  the  same  class  as  The 
Jew  of  Malta,  overloaded  to  an  inconceivable 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  71 

extent  with  the  most  fiendish  crimes,  but  in 
several  scenes  really  beautiful  and  fanciful, 
and  containing,  like  The  Jew  of  Malta,  a  single 
predominant  character,  the  villain  Eleazar, 
drawn  with  abundant  strength  and  some 
precision.  This  play  is  the  very  quintessence 
of  the  Tragedy  of  Blood;  crammed  from  end 
to  end  with  the  most  ingeniously  atrocious 
villanies,  but  redeemed  from  utter  vulgarity 
by  a  certain  force  and  even  delicacy  of  ex- 
pression, and  a  barbaric  splendour  of  horror 
not  untinged  with  ferocious  irony.  It  is  a 
work  of  art,  if  of  a  gross  and  immature  kind, 
in  a  sense  in  which  The  Spanish  Tragedy  is 
not.  The  old  outlines  remain,  but  they  are 
filled  in  with  bold  but  glaring  colouring, 
with  coarsely-painted  human  figures,  and  are 
set  in  a  distinct,  though  loud,  key  of  colour. 
The  thing  is  revolting,  but  it  is  no  longer  con- 
temptible. 

Between  these  two  plays,  but  rather  in 
company  with  the  former  than  the  latter,  I 
would  place  Titus  Andronicus.  Like  The 
Jew  of  Malta  and  Lust's  Dominion,  it  con- 
tains the  full-length  portrait  of  a  villain; 
like  The  Spanish  Tragedy,  its  most  powerful 


72      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

scenes  are  devoted  to  the  revengeful  madness 
of  a  wronged  old  man. 

I  In  construction  Titus  Andronicus  belongs 
distinctively  to  the  Tragedy  of  Blood:  it  is 
full  of  horrors  and  of  bloodthirsty  characters. 
There  are,  if  I  remember  rightly,  thirteen 
murders  and  executions,  besides  various  out- 
rages and  mutilations,  in  the  course  of  the  play. 
More  than  half,  including  a  torture  and  a 
banquet  of  human  flesh,  are  enacted  on  the 
stage.  As  regards  the  characters,  there  is 
in  Titus  a  fine  note  of  tragic  pathos,  in  Aaron 
a  certain  vigour  and  completeness  of  wicked- 
ness, in  Tamora  a  faint  touch  of  power,  but  in 
Lavinia,  in  Bassianus,  in  Saturninus,  in  the 
sons  of  Titus  and  Tamora,  scarcely  the  sem- 
blance of  an  attribute.  The  powerful  sketch 
of  Aaron  is  a  good  deal  indebted  to  the  Barabas 
of  Marlowe.  There  is  much  the  same  compre- 
hensive malevolence,  feeding  on  itself  rather 
than  on  any  external  provocation;  a  malevo- 
lence even  deeper  in  dye,  if  less  artistic  in 
expression.  Both  have  a  delight  in  evil, 
apart  from  the  pleasure  anticipated  from  an 
end  gained:  they  revel  in  it,  like  a  virtuous 
egoist  in  the  consciousness  of  virtue.  Eleazar, 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  73 

in  Lust's  Dominion,  is  a  slightly  different  type 
of  the  complete  villain.  His  is  a  cold,  calcula- 
ting wickedness,  not  raving  nor  furious,  but 
set  on  a  certain  end.  He  enjoys  his  villany, 
but  in  a  somewhat  sad  and  sober  fashion. 
He  is  supremely  ambitious;  to  that  ambition 
all  other  qualities  of  evil  bow,  his  lust,  his 
cruelty,  his  spite,  his  pride;  everything.  He 
uses  his  passions  and  the  passions  of  others  as 
trained  servants;  and  he  sets  them  tasks, 
always  for  his  advancement.  The  three  vil- 
lains, Barabas,  Aaron,  and  Eleazar,  are  three 
of  the  earliest,  three  primary  types,  of  that  long 
series  in  which  the  Elizabethan  dramatists 
attempted  to  read  the  problem  of  Renaissance 
Italy :  of  wickedness  without  moral  sense,  with- 
out natural  conscience,  wickedness  cultivated 
almost  as  an  aesthetic  quality,  and  attaining 
a  strenuous  perfection. 

The  character  of  Titus  is  on  a  higher  plane 
than  that  of  Aaron;  it  has  more  humanity, 
and  a  pathos  that  is  the  most  artistic  quality  of 
the  play.  Titus  is  the  one  character,  absolutely 
the  only  one,  who  moves  us  to  any  sympathy 
of  emotion.  The  delineation  is  unequal,  there 
are  passages  and  scenes  of  mere  incoherency 


74     STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

and  flatness,  speeches  put  into  his  mouth  of 
the  most  furious  feebleness,  but  at  its  best, 
in  the  later  scenes  of  half  real  and  half  pre- 
tended madness,  the  character  of  Titus  is 
not  so  very  much  below  the  Hieronymo  of  the 
"  additions."  At  its  worst  it  sinks  to  almost 
the  level  of  the  original  Hieronymo.  Such 
curious  inequality  is  not  observable  in  any 
other  person  of  the  play.  Aaron  and  Tamora 
are  the  Aaron  and  Tamora  of  a  single  con- 
ception, worked  out  with  more  or  less  skill  on 
a  level  line.  The  dummies  of  the  play  are 
consistent  dummies.  Lavinia  is  a  single  and 
unmixed  blunder.  But  Titus,  by  his  situa- 
tion the  most  interesting  character  of  the  play, 
is  at  one  time  fine,  at  another  foolish,  in  a  way 
for  which  it  is  difficult  to  account  if  a  single 
author  wrote  the  whole  play. 

Lavinia,  I  have  said,  is  a  single  and  un- 
mixed blunder.  There  is  no  other  word  for  it. 
I  can  never  read  the  third  scene  of  the  second 
act  without  amazement  at  the  folly  of  the 
writer,  who,  requiring  in  the  nature  of  things 
to  win  our  sympathy  for  his  afflicted  heroine, 
fills  her  mouth  with  the  grossest  and  vilest 
insults  against  Tamora,  so  gross,  so  vile,  so 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  75 

unwomanly,  that  her  punishment  becomes 
something  of  a  retribution  instead  of  being 
wholly  a  brutality.  There  is  every  dramatic 
reason  why  the  victim  should  not  share  the 
villain's  soul,  every  dramatic  reason  why  her 
situation  should  be  one  of  pure  pathos.  Noth- 
ing but  the  coarseness  of  nature  of  the  man 
who  first  wrote  it  can  explain  the  absurdity. 
And  this  is  Shakespeare's  first  heroine,  the 
first  of  the  series  which  ends  with  Imogen,  in 
the  opinion  of  those  critics  who  assign  the  whole 
of  Titus  Andronicus  to  the  young  Shakespeare! 
The  character  of  Lavinia  is  alone  enough  to 
disprove  this  opinion;  and  the  character  of 
Lavinia  only  belongs  to  the  general  concep- 
tion of  the  play,  which  is  not  at  all  better  than 
might  be  expected  of  a  clever  follower  of  ap- 
proved models,  a  disciple  of  Marlowe  in  his 
popular  melodrama.  But  when  we  have  said 
this,  we  have  not  said  everything.  The  beauty 
and  force  of  certain  passages,  and  the  impres- 
siveness  of  certain  scenes,  are  so  marked, 
and  so  markedly  above  the  level  of  the  sur- 
rounding work,  that  we  may  well  hesitate  to 
deny  to  Shakespeare  all  part  or  lot  in  it. 
Two  positions  I  think  we  are  justified  in 


76      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

* 

assuming.     First,  that  Titus  Andronicus  is  so 

absolutely  unlike  all  Shakespeare's  other  early 
work,  that  it  is,  to  say  the  least,  improbable 
that  the  whole  play  can  be  his;  and  second, 
that  the  assumption  of  a  revision  by  him  of 
another  man's  work  is,  on  the  face  of  it,  quite 
probable  and  likely.  Shakespeare's  first  origi- 
nal plays  were  bright,  fanciful,  witty,  dainty 
comedies,  touched  with  the  young  joy  of 
existence,  full  of  irreflective  gaiety  and  playful 
intellect;  nowhere  dwelling  on  things  horrible 
and  unpleasant,  but  rather  avoiding  the  very 
approaches  of  anything  so  serious  as  tragedy. 
It  was  the  Court  Comedies  of  Lyly  rather  than 
the  Bloody  Tragedies  of  Kyd  which  influenced 
the  earliest  dramatic  writings  of  Shakespeare. 
Romeo  and  Juliet,  a  romantic  drama  with  a 
tragical  ending,  but  not  a  tragedy  in  the  sense 
in  which  King  Lear  is  a  tragedy,  shows  us 
very  distinctly  the  manner  in  which  Shake- 
speare, even  at  a  much  later  period  than  the 
latest  assignable  to  Titus  Andronicus,  dealt 
with  the  sadnesses  and  incongruities  of  life, 
with  sorrow,  loss,  death,  affliction,  wrong. 
There  is  not  a  touch,  not  a  tone  of  horror; 
all  sorrow  resolves  itself  into  "  tears  of  perfect 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  77 

moan;"  all  tragedy  dies  upon  a  song.  It  is 
exquisitely  pathetic,  but  there  is  little  hint  of 
the  unspeakable  pathos  of  Lear.  Now  Titus 
Andronicus  is  full  of  gross  horror,  sickening 
with  the  scent  of  blood,  materially  moving. 
It  seems  nothing  less  than  impossible  that  the 
same  hand  should  have  written,  first  this  play, 
in  which  the  playwright  revels  coarsely  in 
blood  and  horror;  then  Romeo  and  Juliet,  in 
which  a  tragic  story  is  treated  with  only  a 
lyrical  rendering  of  the  tragedy;  then  King 
Lear,  burdened  with  an  almost  intolerable 
weight  of  terror,  but  kept  sweet,  and  pure,  and 
fair  by  the  twin  quality  of  pity.  Unless 
Shakespeare  wrote  Titus  Andronicus  he  never 
touched  tragedy  without  making  it  either 
lyrically  pathetic  or  piteously  terrible.  And 
it  is  only  natural  to  suppose  that  he  never  did, 
and  never  could  have  done  so. 

On  the  other  hand,  taking  into  consideration 
the  differences  of  workmanship  traceable  in 
the  play,  and  the  comparative  force  and  beauty 
of  certain  parts,  it  is  not  impossible  that  Shake- 
speare had,  if  not  a  hand,  at  least  some  finger 
in  it.  It  is  known  that  he  was  at  one  time  the 
"  Johannes-f ac-totum "  of  a  players'  company 


78      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

and  that  he  was  employed  in  furbishing  up 
old  plays  for  fresh  performance.  Suppose  a 
new  play,  by  a  "private  author,"  written, 
somewhat  clumsily,  in  a  popular  style,  to  be 
offered  to  the  theatre:  what  would  be  more 
likely  than  that  the  thing  should  be  handed 
over  to  the  dramatic  journeyman,  young 
Shakespeare,  for  brief  revision  and  rectifica- 
tion? Young  Shakespeare,  little  as  he  may 
care  for  the  style,  of  course  must  hold  himself 
subservient  to  the  ideals  of  the  original  play- 
wright; but  he  heightens,  where  he  can,  the 
art  of  the  delineations,  inserts  some  passages 
of  far  more  impressive  significance,  perhaps 
almost  some  scenes,  and  touches  the  dead  level 
of  the  language  into  something  of  grace  and 
freshness.  Thus  we  have  a  stupid  plot,  a 
medley  of  horrible  incidents,  an  undercurrent 
of  feeble  language;  and,  in  addition,  some 
powerful  dramatic  writing,  together  with  bright 
passages  here  and  there,  in  which  a  fresh  and 
living  image  is  expressed  finely. 

Coleridge's  fancy  or  theory  as  to  Shake- 
speare's way  of  dealing  with  a  play  in  revising 
it;  beginning  indifferently,  adding  only  a  line 
here  and  there,  but  getting  more  interested 


r 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  79 

as  he  went  on,  applies  very  well  to  Titus 
Andronicus.  All  the  first  act  is  feeble  and 
ineffectual;  here  and  there  a  line,  a  couplet, 
a  short  passage,  such  as  the  touch  on  mercy, 
or  the  speech  of  Titus  (I.  i.  187-200)  puts  a 
colour  on  the  pale  outline,  and  permits  us  for 
a  moment  to  think  of  Shakespeare.  But  the 
"purple  patches"  are  woefully  far  apart. 
Such  entire  brainlessness  as  goes  to  the  making 
of  the  very  important  piece  of  dialogue  be- 
tween the  270th  and  the  290th  lines  of  the 
first  scene  of  the  first  act,  is  scarcely  to  be 
found  throughout  the  whole  play.  All  the 
business  of  the  act  is  confused  and  distorted; 
lengthy  where  it  should  be  short,  short  where 
it  ought  to  be  extended.  There  is  not  a  touch 
in  it,  probable  or  possible,  of  the  shaping  hand 
of  Shakespeare;  of  itself  the  act  is  enough  to 
disprove  his  authorship  of  the  complete 
play. 

With  the  second  act  there  is  a  decided  im- 
provement. Aaron,  the  notable  villain  of  the 
piece  makes  his  first  appearance;  Tamora 
blossoms  out  into  the  full  flower  of  wicked- 
ness; and  in  the  mouths  of  these  anything 
but  idyllic  personages  we  have  some  of  those 


80 

fine  idyllic  passages  which  seem  not  unlike 
the  early  style  of  Shakespeare.  For  myself, 
I  can  see  no  touch  of  Shakespeare  in  the  first 
lines  of  the  act: 

"Now  climbeth  Tamora  Olympus'  top," 

which  some  would  assign  to  his  account.  They 
are  a  very  tolerable  but  entirely  flagrant 
imitation  of  Marlowe's  most  rhetorical  manner; 
by  no  means  above  the  reach  of  the  first 
author  of  the  play,  although,  in  a  sense,  above 
his  level.  But  in  some  later  passages  it  seems 
not  unpermissible  to  see  the  token  of  Shake- 
speare's hand.  The  lines  from  80  ("She  is  a 
woman,  therefore  may  be  woo'd"  l)  onward 
through  a  speech  or  two,  have  unquestion- 
ably a  truer  ring,  a  more  easy  flow  and  vigour, 

1  This  adage  seems  to  have  been  popular  in  Elizabethan 
times,  and  is  by  no  means  necessarily  a  Shakespearian 
sentiment.  Beside  the  exactly  parallel  passage  in  the  First 
Part  of  King  Henry  VI,  and  the  partly  parallel  passage  in 
Richard  III,  there  is  another,  tolerably  close,  in  The  Birth 
of  Merlin  (I.  i.)  one  of  the  so-called  "Doubtful  Plays," 
but  as  doubtful,  in  an  opposite  sense,  as  Othello: 

For  her  consent,  let  your  fair  suit  go  on; 
She  is  a  woman,  sir,  and  will  be  won. 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  81 

than  the  surrounding  dialogue.  Three  lines, 
a  little  further  on: 

The  emperor's  court  is  like  the  House  of  Fame, 
The  palace  full  of  tongues,  of  eyes  and  ears: 
The  woods  are  ruthless,  dreadful,  deaf,  and  dull; 

have  a  genuine  impressiveness,  and  one  is 
almost  inclined  to  refer  them  to  Shakespeare, 
the  more  so  that  they  have  so  much  the 
appearance  of  an  insertion  that  they  could 
be  omitted  without  the  least  necessary  break 
in  the  sense.  In  the  second  and  third  scenes 
there  are  several  well-known  passages,  often 
attributed  to  Shakespeare:  "The  hunt  is  up, 
the  morn  is  bright  and  gray,"  (1-6);  the 
companion  piece  of  the  third  scene,  "The 
birds  chant  melody  on  every  bush;"  and, 
again  the  powerful  description  of  the  "  barren 
and  detested  vale"  (91  et  seq.).  None  of  these 
are  wholly  unworthy  of  Shakespeare's  youth. 
The  second  passage  (scene  iii.  10-29,  and  not 
by  any  means  ending,  as  some  would  have  it 
end,  at  the  15th  line)  impresses  me  as  the 
most  melodious  and  fanciful  in  the  play,  and, 
more  than  that,  a  really  beautiful  interlude. 
If  there  is  any  Shakespeare  in  the  play,  this 
is.  But  the  speech  of  Tamora  (91-108) 


82      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

powerful  as  it  is  in  some  respects,  is  somewhat 
less  obviously  Shakespearian.  In  the  blunder- 
ing and  foolish  scene  between  Tamora  and 
Lavinia,  further  on  in  the  third  scene,  there  is, 
in  conception  and  general  execution,  about  as 
much  of  Shakespeare  as  of  Bacon;  but  nine 
really  pathetic  lines  (158-166)  I  should  like 
to  think  Shakespeare's.  Lavinia  says  to  De- 
metrius and  Chiron,  referring  to  Tamora, 
"  Do  thou  entreat  her  show  a  woman  pity." 

Chi.  What !  would 'st  thou  have  me  show  myself  a  bastard? 

Lav.  'Tis  true;  the  raven  doth  not  hatch  a  lark: 
Yet  have  I  heard  (0  could  I  find  it  now!) 
The  lion,  mov'd  with  pity,  did  endure 
To  have  his  princely  paws  par'd  all  away. 
Some  say  the  ravens  foster  forlorn  children, 
The  whilst  their  own  birds  famish  in  the  nest: 
O,  be  to  me,  though  thy  hard  heart  say  no, 
Nothing  so  kind,  but  something  pitiful! 

The  turn  of  these  lines,  particularly  the  last 
two,  is  good;  and  it  will  be  noticed  that 
Tamora's  next  speech,  "I  know  not  what  it  is: 
away  with  her,"  might  even  better  have  come 
directly  in  answer  to  Lavinia' s  first  appeal: 

Do  thou  entreat  her  show  a  woman  pity. 

The  "it"  of  "I  know  not  what  it  means" 
would  then  naturally  refer  to  the  "pity"  of 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  83 

the  preceding  line;  as  it  is,  there  is  some 
irregularity  in  such  an  answer,  referring  as  it 
does  to  nothing  more  direct  than,  "0  be  to 
me  .  .  .  something  pitiful!"  The  lines  have 
quite  the  appearance  of  an  insertion. 

The  last  three  acts  are  far  superior  to  the 
first  two.  They  are  mainly  concerned  with 
the  wrongs  and  madness  of  Titus,  which  I 
suspect  to  have  been  entered  into  by  Shake- 
speare with  more  sympathy  than  the  other 
parts  of  the  play,  and  almost  throughout 
dignified  and  humanized  by  him.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  that  Shakespeare  wrote  all,  or 
most,  of  the  speeches  assigned  to  Titus  through- 
out the  play,  or  even  in  the  last  three  acts. 
The  touches  by  which  a  great  poet  can  raise 
the  work  of  a  small  poet  from  puerility  to 
fineness  may  be  slight  and  delicate;  and  are, 
indeed,  far  too  delicate  to  be  distinguished 
and  emphasized  by  the  critic.  Nor  is  the 
service,  which  I  suspect  Shakespeare  to  have 
rendered  his  predecessor,  complete.  Not  a 
few  empty  and  rhetorical  passages  put  into 
the  mouth  of  the  suffering  hero  seem  like 
untouched  fragments  of  the  former  stuff. 
If  anyone  will  be  at  the  pains  to  compare, 


84      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

say  the  speech  of  Titus  at  line  65  (Act  III) 
with  the  speech  of  Titus  at  line  33,  he  will  see, 
I  cannot  but  think,  a  considerable  difference; 
and  a  glance  at  the  tawdry  rant  of  Marcus, 
at  the  close  of  the  second  act,  will  still  further 
emphasize  the  contrast  if  compared  with,  say, 
the  five  lines  of  the  same  speaker  at  line  82 
of  the  third  act.  In  all  the  earlier  part  of  the 
play,  and  throughout  in  perhaps  every  char- 
acter but  Titus,  such  touches  of  Shakespeare 
as  we  can  distinguish  are  occasional,  and  are 
merely  brief  additions  and  revisions  of  single 
passages.  But  in  the  "magnificent  lunacy" 
of  Titus  (as  Symonds  rightly  calls  it)  there  is 
a  note  of  tragic  pathos  which  seems  to  me 
distinctly  above  the  reach  of  an  imitative 
dramatist  of  the  School  of  Blood.  How  much 
of  Shakespeare  there  is  in  this  latter  part  of 
the  play  it  is  hazardous  to  conjecture.  We 
cannot  so  much  point  to  certain  lines,  as  in 
the  earliest  acts,  and  say,  "This  reads  like 
Shakespeare;"  but  we  perceive  a  finer  spirit 
at  work,  and  the  keener  sense  that  went  to 
the  making  or  mending  of  some  whole  scenes, 
or  main  parts  of  them.  Swinburne  has  pointed 
out  that  the  significant  arrow-scenes  are  written 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  85 

in  blank  verse  of  more  variety  and  vigour  than 
we  find  in  the  baser  parts  of  the  play;  and 
these,  he  adds,  if  any  scenes,  we  may  surely 
attribute  to  Shakespeare.  I  would  add  eome 
part,  by  no  means  all,  of  the  second  scene  of 
the  fifth  act;  especially  that  grimly  ironical 
passage  from  the  80th  line  onwards  about 
twenty  lines.  The  first  60  lines  of  the  scene, 
powerful  as  they  are,  have  no  Shakespearian 
quality  in  them:  they  are  directly  studied 
from  Marlowe,  no  doubt  by  the  "  private 
author,"  who  was  certainly  a  disciple  of  Mar- 
lowe, and  not  without  a  measure  of  cleverness. 
Again,  the  devilish  utterances  of  Aaron  (Act 
V.  sc.  i.)  some  of  the  most  noticeable  speeches 
in  the  play,  are  absolutely  un-Shakespearian, 
while  distinctly  in  the  manner  of  Marlowe. 
Indeed,  so  closely  are  they  imitated  from  the 
confession  of  Barabas  (Jew  of  Malta,  Act  II. 
sc.  ii.)  that  we  can  hardly  be  surprised  at  the 
occasional  attribution  of  the  play  to  Marlowe; 
worse  than  foolish  as  this  is  on  every  really 
reasonable  ground.  All  the  ending  of  the  play, 
the  grotesquely  horrible  dish  of  human  flesh, 
the  tortures,  is,  of  course,  entirely  due  to  the 
original  author.  Nothing  is  more  clearly  and 


86      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

more  closely  connected  with  the  model  Tragedy 
of  Blood;  and  nothing  certainly  could  be 
more  unlike  Shakespeare. 

Thus  we  see,  on  glancing  through  the  play, 
that  Titus  Andronicus,  in  its  plot,  general 
conception,  and  most  of  its  characters,  belongs 
distinctly  to  the  Tragedy  of  Blood,  and,  being 
in  these  respects  inferior  to  the  best  of  it,  may 
be  considered  the  work  of  a  disciple  of  the 
school,  not  of  an  acknowledged  master; 
while  in  certain  parts  it  seems  to  be  lifted 
above  itself,  vivified  and  dignified:  a  com- 
bination which  naturally  suggests  the  revision 
of  an  inferior  work  by  a  superior  master.  The 
closer  we  examine  it,  the  more  natural  does  this 
view  become,  and  the  more  probable  does  it 
seem  that  in  Titus  Andronicus  we  have  the 
work  of  an  unknown  writer  revised  by  the 
young  Shakespeare.  To  consider  it  the  work 
of  an  amateur,  a  disciple  of  the  School  of 
Blood,  but  not  a  great  writer,  raised  to  its 
present  interesting  and  imperfect  state  by 
Shakespeare's  early  revision  (which  is  sub- 
stantially the  Ravenscroft  tradition)  seems  to 
explain  the  otherwise  inexplicable  mixture  in 
this  singular  play  of  good  and  bad,  twaddle 


TITUS  ANDRONICUS  87 

and  impress! veness;  and  seems  to  explain,  on 
the  one  hand,  why  it  is  so  good  as  it  is,  on  the 
other,  why  it  is  no  better.  I  do  not  think 
it_is  very  sensible  to  try  to  assign  the  play, 
as  originally  written,  to  some  well-known 
author  of  the  time,  such  as  Greene  or  Marlowe, 
rather  than  to  the  "  private  author."  Such 
resemblances  of  these  writers  as  occur  might 
naturally  be  imitations;  but  to  father  on 
Marlowe,  in  especial,  the  meaner  parts  of  the 
play,  is  a  quite  gratuitous  insult  to  his  memory. 

1885. 


VII.    THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII 

Henry  VIII  was  first  printed  in  the  Folio 
of  1623,  where  it  ends  the  series  of  "Histories." 
The  main  historical  authorities  were,  in  the 
first  four  acts,  Holinshed's  Chronicles;  in  the 
fifth,  Foxe's  Acts  and  Monuments  of  the  Church, 
commonly  known  as  The  Book  of  Martyrs. 
The  play  is  a  good  deal  indebted,  directly  or 
indirectly,  to  a  narrative  then  in  MS.,  George 
Cavendish's  Life  of  Cardinal  Wolsey,  largely 
quoted  by  both  Holinshed  and  Hall,  though 
the  book  itself  was  not  published  till  1641. 
The  play  follows  its  authorities  closely,  alike 
in  the  main  course  of  incident  and  in  the  gen- 
eral choice  of  language;  but  there  are  numerous 
deviations  from  the  chronological  order  of 
events. 

So  far  we  have  dealt  with  facts:  what  re- 
mains must  be  but  conjecture.  It  is  as  well  to 
say  frankly  that  we  know  with  certainty 
neither  who  wrote  Henry  VIII,  nor  when  it 
was  written.  I  shall  give,  first,  the  scanty 
records,  the  few  external  facts  relating  to  the 

88 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII      89 

play;  then,  the  various  theories  which  have 
been  brought  forward  as  to  its  date  and  author- 
ship; not  having  much  hope  of  being  able, 
finally,  to  speak  myself  on  all  points  with 
the  enviable  assurance  of  one  whose  mind  is 
fully  and  confidently  made  up. 

The  first  allusion  to  a  play  on  the  subject 
of  Henry  VIII  is  found  in  an  entry  in  the 
Stationers'  Registers  under  date  February  12, 
1604-5:  "  Nath.  Butter]  yf  he  get  good  allow- 
ance for  the  Enterlude  of  K.  Henry  8th  before 
he  begyn  to  print  it,  and  then  procure  the  war- 
dens hands  to  yt  for  the  entrance  of  yt,  he  is 
to  have  the  same  for  his  copy."  This  play, 
which  Collier  " feels  no  hesitation"  in  sup- 
posing to  be  the  play  which  we  find  in  the 
Folio,  may  more  reasonably  be  identified  with 
the  rough  and  scrambling  historical  comedy 
of  Samuel  Rowley,  When  you  see  me,  you  know 
mee;  or,  the  famous  Chronicle  Historie  of  King 
Henrie  the  Eight,  with  the  berth  and  vertuous 
life  of  Edward  Prince  of  Wales,  which  Nathaniel 
Butter  published  in  1605.  It  is  a  bluff, 
hearty,  violently  Protestant  piece  of  work, 
the  Protestant  emphasis  being  indeed  the 
most  striking  thing  about  it.  The  verse  is 


90      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

formal,  with  one  or  two  passages  of  somewhat 
heightened  quality;  the  characters  include 
a  stage  Harry,  a  very  invertebrate  Wolsey, 
a  Will  Sommers  whose  jokes  are  as  thin  as 
they  are  inveterate,  a  Queen  Katharine  of  the 
doctrinal  and  magnanimous  order,  a  modest 
Prince  Edward;  with  minor  personages  of 
the  usual  sort,  and,  beyond  the  usual,  a  Dog- 
berry and  Verges  set  of  watchmen,  with  whom, 
together  with  one  Black  Will,  King  Henry  has 
a  ruffling  scene.  The  play  was  reprinted  in 
1613,  in  1621,  and  again  in  1632. 

The  next  allusion  which  we  find  to  a  play  on 
the  subject  of  Henry  VIII  is  in  connection  with 
the  burning  of  the  Globe  Theatre  on  June  29, 
1613.  Among  the  Harleian  MSS.  there  is  a 
letter  from  Thomas  Lorkin  to  Sir  Thomas 
Pickering,  dated  "the  last  day  of  June,  1613," 
in  which  we  read:  "No  longer  since  than 
yesterday,  while  Bourbege  his  companie  were 
acting  at  ye  Globe  the  play  of  Hen =8,  and 
there  shooting  of  certayne  chambers  in  way 
of  triumph,  the  fire  catch'd."  On  July  6, 
1613,  Sir  Henry  Wotton  writes  to  his  nephew: 
"Now  to  let  matters  of  state  sleep;  I  will 
entertain  you  at  the  present  with  what  hath 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII      91 

happened  this  week  at  the  Bank-side.  The 
king's  players  had  a  new  play,  called  All  is 
True,  representing  some  principal  pieces  of  the 
reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  which  was  set 
forth  with  many  extraordinary  circumstances 
of  pomp  and  majesty,  even  to  the  matting  of 
the  stage;  the  Knights  of  the  Order,  with 
their  Georges  and  Garter,  the  guards  with  their 
embroidered  coats,  and  the  like:  sufficient  in 
truth,  within  a  while,  to  make  greatness 
very  familiar,  if  not  ridiculous.  Now  King 
Henry,  making  a  mask  at  the  Cardinal  Wolsey's 
house,  and  certain  cannons  being  shot  off  at 
his  entry,  some  of  the  paper  or  other  stuff 
wherewith  one  of  them  was  stopped,  did  light 
on  the  thatch,  where,  being  thought  at  first 
but  an  idle  smoke,  and  their  eyes  more  atten- 
tive to  the  show,  it  kindled  inwardly,  and  ran 
round  like  a  train,  consuming,  within  an 
hour,  the  whole  house  to  the  very  ground." 
A  ballad  written  on  the  occasion  of  "The 
Lamentable  Burning  of  the  Globe  Play-House 
on  S.  Peter's  Day  "  has  for  the  refrain  of  every 
stanza : 

0  sorrow!    O  pitiful  sorrow! 
And  yet  it  All  is  True; 


92      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

an  evident  allusion  to  the  title  of  the  play 
whose  performance  ended  so  disastrously. 
The  ballad  mentions  that 

The  fearful  fire  began  above 
By  firing  chambers  too; 

and  we  learn  from  another  stanza  that  the  trial 
of  Katharine  formed  a  part  of  the  action: 

Away  ran  Lady  Katharine, 
Nor  waited  for  her  trial. 
Such  trial  was  not  in  her  part; 
Escape  was  all  she  had  at  heart. 

In  the  1615  edition  of  Stowe's  Annales,  "con- 
tinued and  augmented  by  Edmond  Howes," 
we  read  under  date  1613:  "also  upon  St. 
Peter's  Day  last  the  playhouse  or  theatre, 
called  the  Globe,  upon  the  Bankside,  near 
London,  by  negligent  discharging  of  a  piece 
of  ordnance  close  to  the  south  side  thereof, 
took  fire,  and  the  wind  suddenly  dispersed  the 
flame  round  about,  and  in  a  very  short  space 
the  whole  building  was  quite  consumed,  and 
no  man  hurt;  the  house  being  filled  with 
people  to  behold  the  play,  viz.,  of  Henry  the 
Eighth :  and  the  next  spring  it  was  new  builded 
in  far  fairer  manner  than  before." 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII      93 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  in  1613  a  play  on 
the  subject  of  Henry  VIII  was  being  actecfat 
the  Globe  under  the  name  of  All  is  True. 
It  is  described  by  Sir  Henry  Wotton  as  "a 
new  play."  Further,  it  represented  "King 
Henry  making  a  mask  at  the  Cardinal  Wolsey's 
house,"  where  chambers  were  discharged  in 
his  honour,  as  in  the  Folio  Henry  VIII,  i.  iv. 
(stage  direction,  after  line  49:  "Drum  and 
trumpet,  chambers  discharged").  It  also  ap- 
parently contained  a  scene  in  which  Katha- 
rine was  brought  to  trial.  The  name  All  is 
True  is  perfectly  appropriate  to  the  play  which 
we  have  in  the  Folio,  and  in  the  Prologue  there 
are  three  expressions  which  may  be  taken  as 
references  to  such  a  title:  line  9:  "may  here 
find  truth,  too;"  line  18:  "To  rank  our 
chosen  truth  with  such  a  show;"  and  line  21: 
"To  make  that  only  true  we  now  intend." 
So  far,  we  have  a  certain  show  of  evidence, 
very  slight  indeed,  which  might  lead  us  to 
suppose  (in  the  absence  of  other  evidence  to 
the  contrary)  that  the  play  All  is  True,  acted 
as  a  new  play  at  the  Globe  in  1613,  was  that 
which  is  printed  as  Henry  VIII  in  the  First 
Folio  of  Shakespeare.  There  is  nothing,  how- 


94      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

ever,  to  tell  us  that  this  play  of  1613  was  by 
Shakespeare. 

Leaving  for  the  present  the  question  of  date, 
we  must  now  consider  the  more  important 
question  of  authorship.  And  here  we  should 
premise  that  the  fact  of  Henry  VIII  having 
been  printed  in  the  First  Folio  is  far  from  being 
a  conclusive  argument  on  behalf  of  its  genuine- 
ness, whole  or  partial.  The  editors  of  the 
First  Folio  had  an  elastic  sense  of  their  editorial 
responsibilities.  They  admitted  Titus  Androni- 
cus  and  the  three  parts  of  Henry  VI,  which 
it  is  practically  certain  that  Shakespeare  did 
no  more  than  revise;  as  well  as  The  Taming 
of  the  Shrew,  which  we  know  to  be  a  recast 
of  the  earlier  play  The  Taming  of  a  Shrew. 
They  did  not  admit  Pericles,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  Quarto  under  Shakespeare's  name, 
universally  recognized  at  the  time  as  his, 
and,  in  the  greater  part  of  it,  so  obviously 
Shakespearian  that  its  authenticity  could 
not  have  been  seriously  doubted. 

The  first  to  call  attention  to  the  metrical 
peculiarities  of  Henry  VIII  was  a  certain  Mr. 
Roderick,  Fellow  of  Magdalen  College,  Cam- 
bridge, some  of  whose  notes  are  given  in  the 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII      95 

sixth  and  posthumous  edition  of  Thomas 
Edwardes'  Canons  of  Criticism,  published  in 
1758.  Roderick  notes  (1)  that  "there  are  in 
this  Play  many  more  verses  than  in  any  other, 
which  end  with  a  redundant  syllable  .  .  . 
this  Play  has  very  near  two  redundant  verses 
to  one  in  any  other  Play;"  (2)  that  "the 
Ccesurce,  or  Pauses  of  the  verse,  are  full  as 
remarkable;"  (3)  "that  the  emphasis,  arising 
from  the  sense  of  the  verse,  very  often  clashes 
with  the  cadence  that  would  naturally  result 
from  the  metre."  "What  Shakespeare  in- 
tended by  all  this,"  he  adds,  "I  fairly  own 
myself  ignorant." 

Before  this,  Johnson  had  observed  that  the 
genius  of  Shakespeare  comes  in  and  goes  out 
with  Katharine,  and  that  every  other  part 
might  be  easily  conceived  and  easily  written. 
Later,  in  1819,  Coleridge  distinguished  Henry 
VIII  from  Shakespeare's  other  historical  plays 
as  "a  sort  of  historical  masque  or  show- 
play."  Even  Knight  was  forced  to  acknowl- 
edge that  the  moral  which  he  traces  through 
the  first  four  acts  has  to  be  clenched  in  the 
fifth  by  referring  to  history  for  it.  It  was 
not,  however,  till  1850  that  it  occurred  to 


96      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

anyone  to  follow  out  these  clues  by  calling 
in  question  the  entire  authenticity  of  the 
play.  In  that  year  the  suggestion  was  made  by 
three  independent  investigators.  Emerson,  in 
his  Representative  Men,  treating  of  Shake- 
speare, says  passingly:  "In  Henry  VIII  I 
think  I  see  plainly  the  cropping  out  of  the 
original  rock  on  which  his  own  finer  stratum 
was  laid.  The  first  play  was  written  by  a 
superior,  thoughtful  man,  with  a  vicious  ear. 
I  can  mark  his  lines,  and  know  well  their 
cadence.  See  Wolsey's  soliloquy,  and  the 
following  scene  with  Cromwell,  where — instead 
of  the  metre  of  Shakespeare,  whose  secret  is, 
that  the  thought  constructs  the  tune,  so  that 
reading  for  the  sense  will  best  bring  out  the 
rhythm — here  the  lines  are  constructed  on  a 
given  tune,  and  the  verse  has  even  a  trace  of 
pulpit  eloquence.  But  the  play  contains, 
through  all  its  length,  unmistakable  traits  of 
Shakespeare's  hand,  and  some  passages,  as 
the  account  of  the  coronation,  are  like  auto- 
graphs. What  is  odd,  the  compliment  to 
Queen  Elizabeth  is  in  the  bad  rhythm."  In 
taking  it  for  granted  that  in  Henry  VIII  Shake- 
speare is  to  be  seen  altering  an  earlier  piece 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII      97 

of  work,  rather  than  working  contemporane- 
ously with  another  dramatist,  or  allowing  his 
own  work  to  be  altered,  Emerson  simply 
follows  in  the  line  of  Malone's  investigations 
into  the  construction  of  the  three  parts  of 
Henry  VI.  It  did  not  lie  within  his  scope 
to  investigate  the  matter  further;  the  passage, 
indeed,  in  which  he  states  his  view,  is  a  digres- 
sion from  his  main  argument.  In  August 
of  the  same  year  Mr.  James  Spedding  published 
in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  a  paper  entitled 
"Who  wrote  Shakespeare's  Henry  VIII?"  in 
which  he  dealt  at  considerable  length  with  the 
question  of  authorship.  "I  had  heard  it 
casually  remarked,"  he  says,  "by  a  man  of 
first-rate  judgment  on  such  points  [Tennyson] 
that  many  passages  in  Henry  VIII  were  very 
much  in  the  manner  of  Fletcher.  ...  I  deter- 
mined upon  this  to  read  the  play  through  with 
an  eye  to  this  especial  point,  and  see  whether 
any  solution  of  the  mystery  would  present 
itself.  The  result  of  my  examination  was  a 
clear  conviction  that  at  least  two  different 
hands  had  been  employed  in  the  composition 
of  Henry  VIII,  if  not  three;  and  that  they  had 
worked,  not  together,  but  alternately  upon 


98      STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

it 

distinct  portions  of  it."  On  August  24,  1850, 
a  letter  appeared  in  Notes  and  Queries  from 
Mr.  Samuel  Hickson  (the  writer  of  an  investi- 
gation into  the  authorship  of  The  Two  Noble 
Kinsmen,  published  in  the  Westminster  Review 
of  April  1847)  stating  that  he  himself  had 
made  the  same  discovery  as  Mr.  Spedding  three 
or  four  years  back,  and  desiring  (he  adds) 
"to  strengthen  the  argument  of  the  writer 
in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  by  recording  the 
fact  that  I,  having  no  communication  with 
him,  or  knowledge  of  him,  even  of  his  name, 
should  have  arrived  at  exactly  the  same  con- 
clusion as  his  own."  In  1874  the  New 
Shakespere  Society  republished  Mr.  Spedding's 
essay  and  Mr.  Hickson's  letter,  supporting 
the  theory  of  double  authorship  by  Mr. 
Fleay's  and  Mr.  Furnivall's  application  of 
certain  further  metrical  tests.  In  a  paper 
read  before  the  New  Shakspere  Society,  No- 
vember 13th,  1874,  Professor  J.  K.  Ingram 
expressed  himself  as  not  so  fully  convinced 
that  the  non-Fletcherian  portion  of  the  play 
was  by  Shakspeare  as  that  the  non-Shakespear- 
ian part  was  by  Fletcher.  "In  reading  the 
(so-called)  Shakspearian  part  of  the  play  I 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII      99 

do  not  often  feel  myself  in  contact  with  a 
mind  of  the  first  order.  Still,  it  is  certain  that 
there  is  much  in  it  that  is  like  Shakspere,  and 
some  things  that  are  worthy  of  him  at  his 
best;  that  the  manner,  in  general,  is  more 
that  of  Shakspere  than  of  any  other  con- 
temporary dramatist;  and  that  the  system  of 
verse  is  one  which  we  do  not  find  in  any  other, 
whilst  it  is,  in  all  essentials,  that  of  Shak- 
spere's  last  period.  I  cannot  name  anyone 
else  who  could  have  written  this  portion  of  the 
play"  (New  Shakspere  Society's  Transactions, 
1874,  p.  454).  Finally,  Mr.  Robert  Boyle, 
in  an  "  Investigation  into  the  Origin  and 
Authorship  of  Henry  VIII,"  read  before  the 
New  Shakspere  Society,  January  16th,  1885, 
attempted  to  prove  that  Shakespeare  had  no 
share  whatever  in  the  play,  but  that  the  part 
formerly  assigned  to  him  was  really  written 
by  Massinger,  and  that  Massinger  and  Fletcher 
wrote  the  play  in  collaboration.  Mr.  Spedding 
had  accepted  the  generally-received  date  of 
1612  or  1613,  and  suggested  that  the  play  may 
have  been  put  together  in  a  hurry  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  Princess  Elizabeth's  marriage 
(February,  1612-1613);  Mr.  Boyle  contended 


100    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

that  the  play  was  not  produced  till  1616, 
probably  not  till  1617,  and  that  it  was  written 
to  supply  the  place  of  All  is  True  (possibly 
Shakespeare's,  possibly  not)  which  was  de- 
stroyed in  the  Globe  fire  of  1613. 

Such,  in  brief,  are  the  main  theories  with 
regard  to  the  various  problems  raised  by  this 
puzzling  play.  I  have  purposely  avoided 
saying  much  as  to  the  question  of  date,  both 
because  I  think  there  is  little  to  be  said,  and 
because  this  little  is  rather  an  inference  from, 
than  a  support  to,  whatever  theory  of  author- 
ship we  may  choose  to  follow. 

That  Shakespeare,  or  that  any  single  writer, 
did  not  write  the  whole  of  Henry  VIII,  seems 
to  me  (to  take  a  first  step)  practically  beyond 
a  doubt.  So  much  we  can  hardly  fail  to  accept ; 
first,  on  account  of  the  incoherence  of  the  gen- 
eral action,  the  failure  of  the  play  to  produce 
on  us  a  single,  calculated  effect;  secondly, 
on  the  even  stronger  evidence  of  the  versifica- 
tion. As  Hertzeberg  remarks,  Henry  VIII  is 
"a  chronicle-history  with  three  and  a  half 
catastrophes,  varied  by  a  marriage  and  a 
coronation  pageant,  ending  abruptly  with  the 
birth  of  a  child."  Spedding  rightly  notes  that 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII     101 

"the  effect  of  this  play  as  a  whole  is  weak  and 
disappointing.  The  truth  is  that  the  interest, 
instead  of  rising  towards  the  end,  falls  away 
utterly,  and  leaves  us  in  the  last  act  among 
persons  whom  we  scarcely  know,  and  events 
for  which  we  do  not  care.  .  .  .  The  greater 
part  of  the  fifth  act,  in  which  the  interest  ought 
to  be  gathering  to  a  head,  is  occupied  with 
matters  in  which  we  have  not  been  prepared 
to  take  any  interest  by  what  went  before,  and 
on  which  no  interest  is  reflected  by  what  comes 
after."  It  is  not  merely  that  there  are  certain 
defects  in  the  construction :  defects  in  construc- 
tion are  to  be  found  in  nearly  every  play  of 
Shakespeare.  The  whole  play  is  radically 
wanting  in  both  dramatic  and  moral  coherence. 
Our  sympathy  is  arbitrarily  demanded  and 
arbitrarily  countermanded.  We  are  expected 
to  weep  for  the  undeserved  sorrows  of  Katha- 
rine in  one  act,  and  to  rejoice  over  the  triumph 
of  her  rival,  the  cause  of  all  those  sorrows,  hi 
another.  "The  effect,"  as  Spedding  expres- 
sively puts  it,  "is  much  like  that  which 
would  have  been  produced  by  the  Winter's 
Tale  if  Hermione  had  died  in  the  fourth  act 
in  consequence  of  the  jealous  tyranny  of 


102    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

Leontes,  and  the  play  had  ended  with  the 
coronation  of  a  new  queen  and  the  christen- 
ing of  a  new  heir,  no  period  of  remorse  inter- 
vening." That  Shakespeare,  not  only  in  the 
supreme  last  period  of  his  career,  but  at  any 
point  in  that  career  at  which  it  is  possible  that 
the  play  could  have  been  written,  should 
be  supposed  capable  of  a  blunder  so  headlong, 
final,  and  self -annulling,  is  nothing  less  than  an 
insult  to  his  memory.  It  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  any  single  writer,  capable  of  so  much 
episodical  power,  could  have  produced  a  play 
in  which  the  poinfr  of  view  is  so  constantly 
and  so  unintelligibly  shifted. 

This  is  difficult,  but  it  is  impossible  to 
believe  that  any  single  writer  could  have 
produced  a  play  in  which  the  versification  obeys 
two  perfectly  distinct  laws  in  perfectly  distinct 
scenes  and  passages.  The  unanswerable  ques- 
tion is:  Did  Shakespeare  at  any  period  of  his 
life  write  verse  in  the  metre  of  Wolsey's  often- 
quoted  soliloquy  (iii.  2,  350-372)?  If  one  may 
believe  the  evidence  of  one's  ears,  never; 
nor  is  the  metre  so  admirable  that  we  can 
suppose  he  would  take  the  trouble  to  acquire 
it,  lacking  as  it  is  in  all  that  finer  magic, 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII    103 

in  all  that  subtler  faculty  of  expression  which 
marked,  and  marked  increasingly,  his  own 
verse.  The  versification  of  some  portions  of 
the  play  does  undoubtedly  bear  a  considerable 
resemblance  to  the  later  versification  of  Shake- 
speare. We  have  thus  in  one  play  verse  which 
is  like  Shakespeare's  and  verse  which  is  unlike 
Shakespeare's.  The  conclusion  is  inevitable: 
two  writers  must  have  been  engaged  upon  it. 
Messrs.  Spedding  and  Hickson  agreed  in  divid- 
ing the  play  as  follows.  To  the  writer  whose 
versification  is  like  Shakespeare's  (and  whom 
they  took  to  be  Shakespeare)  they  assign  i. 
1,  2;  ii.  3,  4;  iii.  2  (as  far  as  line  203);  and 
v.  1.  The  rest  of  the  play  they  assign  to  the 
other  author.  Mr.  Boyle,  in  his  examination 
of  the  play,  while  substantially  following  this 
division,  assigns  to  the  Shakespeare-like  author 
iv.  1  (rightly,  as  I  think),  and  also  adds  to  his 
share  i.  4,  lines  1-24,  64-108;  ii.  1,  lines 
1-53,  137-169;  and  v.  3,  lines  1-113.  Reading 
the  remaining  parts  of  the  play,  the  parts  writ- 
ten in  the  metre  of  that  soliloquy  of  Wolsey, 
so  markedly  unlike  that  of  Shakespeare,  we 
find  that  the  metre  is  as  markedly  similar  to 
that  of  Fletcher.  Compare  with  this  passage 


104    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

the  following  typical  passage  from  one  of 
Fletcher's  plays,  The  False  One,  ii.  1: 

I  have  heard  too  much; 
And  study  not  with  smooth  shows  to  invade 
My  noble  mind  as  you  have  done  my  conquest. 
Ye  are  poor  and  open;  I  must  tell  you  roundly, 
That  man  that  could  not  recognise  the  benefits, 
The  great  and  bounteous  services  of  Pompey, 
Can  never  dote  upon  the  name  of  Csesar. 
Though  I  had  hated  Pompey,  and  allowed  his  ruin, 
I  gave  you  no  permission  to  perform  it. 
Hasty  to  please  in  blood  are  seldom  trusty; 
And  but  I  stand  environ'd  with  my  victories, 
My  fortune  never  failing  to  befriend  me, 
My  noble  strengths  and  friends  about  my  person, 
I  durst  not  trust  you,  nor  expect  a  courtesy 
Above  the  pious  love  you  show'd  to  Pompey. 
You  have  found  me  merciful  in  arguing  with  ye; 
Swords,  hangmen,  fires,  destructions  of  all  natures, 
Demolishments  of  kingdoms,  and  whole  rums, 
Are  wont  to  be  my  orators.     Turn  to  tears, 
You  wretched  and  poor  seeds  of  sunburnt  Egypt; 
And  now  you  have  found  the  nature  of  a  conqueror, 
That  you  cannot  decline  with  all  your  flatteries, 
That  when  the  day  gives  light  will  be  himself  still, 
Know  how  to  meet  his  worth  with  humane  courtesies. 
Go  and  embalm  the  bones  of  that  great  soldier; 
Howl  round  about  his  pile,  fling  on  your  spices, 
Make  a  Sabsean  bed,  and  place  this  phoenix 
Where  the  hot  sun  may  emulate  his  virtues, 
And  draw  another  Pompey  from  his  ashes, 
Divinely  great,  and  fix  him  'mongst  the  worthies. 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII     105 

This  gives,  in  an  extreme  form,  those  charac- 
teristics which  peculiarly  distinguish  the  verse 
of  Fletcher,  and  which  (it  will  be  seen)  dis- 
tinguish equally  the  passage  of  Henry  VIII 
to  which  I  have  referred,  and  all  those  portions 
of  the  play  already  indicated;  there  is  the 
same  abundance  of  double  and  triple  endings, 
the  same  fondness  for  an  extra  accented  syl- 
lable at  the  end  of  a  line  (a  characteristic  which 
is  inveterate  in  Fletcher,  and  of  which  scarcely 
an  example  is  to  be  found  in  the  work  of  any 
of  his  contemporaries),  the  same  monotony, 
the  same  clash  of  metrical  and  sense  emphasis. 
Emerson,  in  the  passage  already  quoted, 
defines  admirably  the  difference  between  this 
metre  and  that  of  Shakespeare;  a  difference 
which  is  indeed  so  obvious  as  to  make  defini- 
tion seem  unnecessary.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  in  the  whole  of  Shakespeare  there  is 
such  a  line  as  this  (iii.  2,  352) : 

This  is  the  state  of  man :  to-day  he  puts  forth — 

where  the  double  ending  is  composed  of  two 
equally  accented  syllables.  Examples  by  the 
score  could  be  cited  at  a  moment's  notice  from 
any  play  of  Fletcher's,  and  from  Fletcher's 


106    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

plays  alone.  May  we  not  therefore  feel  justi- 
fied in  assigning  to  Fletcher  (in  the  absence, 
be  it  understood,  of  any  distinguishing  Shake- 
spearian qualities  in  the  characterization  and 
the  language)  those  portions  of  the  play  in 
which  the  versification  is  precisely  like  that 
of  Fletcher  and  completely  unlike  that  of 
Shakespeare  or  any  other  known  dramatist? 

We  have  now  to  consider  the  authorship  of 
the  remaining  part  of  the  play,  the  more  im- 
portant part,  not  only  because  it  contains  the 
famous  trial-scene,  but  because  the  writer 
introduced,  and  doubtless  sketched  out,  the 
various  characters  afterwards  handled  by 
himself  and  his  coadjutor.  Are  these  char- 
acters, we  may  ask  first,  worthy  of  Shake- 
speare, and  do  they  recall  his  manner  of  han- 
dling? Is  their  language  the  Shakespearian 
language,  the  versification  of  their  speeches 
the  Shakespearian  versification?  Or  do  the 
characters,  language,  and  versification  seem 
more  in  the  style  of  Massinger,  or  of  any  other 
writer? 

In  looking  at  the  characters  in  Henry  VIII 
we  must  not  forget  that  they  were  all  found 
ready-made  in  the  pages  of  Holinshed.  The 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII     107 

same  might,  to  a  certain  extent,  be  said  of  all 
Shakespeare's  historical  plays;  the  difference 
in  the  treatment,  however,  is  very  notable. 
In  Henry  VIII  Holinshed  is  followed  blindly 
and  slavishly;  some  of  the  most  admirable 
passages  of  the  play  are  taken  almost  word  for 
word  from  the  Chronicles;  there  are  none  of 
those  illuminating  touches  by  which  Shake- 
speare is  accustomed  to  transfigure  his  bor- 
rowings. Nor  does  Shakespeare  content  him- 
self with  embellishing:  he  creates.  Take,  for 
example,  Bolingbroke,  of  whose  disposition 
Holinshed  says  but  a  few  words;  the  whole 
character  is  an  absolute  creation.  Shake- 
speare's fidelity  to  his  authorities  is  not  so 
great  as  to  prevent  him  from  rejecting  material 
ready  to  his  hand  where  such  material  is  at 
variance  with  his  own  conception  of  a  charac- 
ter. For  example,  Holinshed  records  a  speech 
of  Henry  V  before  the  battle.  Shakespeare 
writes  a  new  one,  in  marked  contrast  to  it. 
Again,  Holingshed  gives  a  speech  of  Hotspur 
delivered  shortly  before  the  battle  of  Shrews- 
bury. Shakespeare  puts  quite  other  words 
and  thoughts  into  Hotspur's  mouth.  In  both 
cases  Holinshed  furnished  a  speech  that  might 


108    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

well  have  been  turned  into  blank  verse;  never- 
theless, it  was  set  aside.  But  in  Henry  VIII 
Holinshed  is  followed  with  a  fidelity  which  is 
simply  slavish. 

The  character  of  Katharine,  for  instance,  on 
which  such  lavish  and  unreasoning  praise  has 
been  heaped,  owes  almost  all  its  effectiveness 
to  the  picturesque  narration  of  the  Chronicles. 
There  we  see  her,  clearly  outlined,  an  obviously 
practicable  figure;  and  it  cannot  be  said  that 
we  get  a  higher  impression  of  her  from  the  play 
than  we  do  from  the  history.  The  dramatist 
has  proved  just  equal  to  the  occasion;  he  has 
taken  the  character  as  he  found  it,  and,  keep- 
ing always  very  close  to  his  authority,  he  has 
produced  a  most  admirable  copy,  transplant- 
ing rather  than  creating.  To  speak  of  the 
character  of  Katharine  as  one  of  the  triumphs 
of  Shakespeare's  art  seems  to  me  altogether  a 
mistake.  The  character  is  a  fine  one,  and  it 
seems,  I  confess,  almost  as  far  above  Massinger 
as  it  is  beneath  Shakespeare.  But  test  it  for  a 
moment  by  placing  Katharine  beside  Her- 
mione.  The  whole  character  is  on  a  distinctly 
lower  plane  of  art :  the  wronged  wife  of  Henry 
has  none  of  the  fascination  of  the  wronged 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII     109 

wife  of  Leontes;  there  are  no  magic  touches. 
Compare  the  trial  scene  in  Henry  VIII 
(ii.  4)  and  the  trial  scene  in  The  Winter's 
Tale  (iii.  2)  I  should  rather  say  contrast  them, 
for  I  can  see  no  possible  comparison  of  the  two. 
Katharine's  speech  is  immeasurably  inferior 
to  Hermione's,  alike  as  art  and  as  nature. 
It  has  none  whatever  of  that  packed  imagery, 
that  pregnant  expressiveness,  that  vividly 
metaphorical  way  of  being  direct,  which  gives 
its  distinction  to  the  speech  of  Hermione.  It 
is,  moreover,  almost  word  for  word  from  Holin- 
shed.  As  for  the  almost  equally  famous 
death  scene,  I  can  simply  express  my  astonish- 
ment that  anyone  could  have  been  found  to 
say  of  it,  with  Johnson,  that  it  is  "  above  any 
other  part  of  Shakespeare's  tragedies,  and 
perhaps  above  any  scene  of  any  other  poet, 
tender  and  pathetic."  Tender  and  pathetic  it 
certainly  is,  but  with  a  pathos  just  a  little  limp, 
if  I  may  use  the  word,  flaccid  almost,  though, 
thanks  to  the  tonic  draught  of  Holinshed,  not 
so  limp  and  flaccid  as  Fletcher  often  is. 

If  Katharine  is  a  little  disappointing,  Anne 
is  an  unmitigated  failure.  That  she  is  meant 
to  be  attractive  is  evident  from  the  remarks 


110    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

made  about  her  in  various  parts  of  the  play, 
in  which  we  are  told  that  she  is  "  virtuous  and 
well-deserving,"  that  she  is  "a  gallant  creature 
and  complete,"  that  "beauty  and  honour" 
are  mingled  in  her,  and  the  like.  And  what 
do  we  see?  A  shadow,  a  faint  and  unpleasing 
sketch,  the  outline  of  one  of  those  slippery 
women  whom  Massinger  so  often  drew.  She 
would  sympathize  with  the  queen,  and  her 
words  of  sympathy  are  strained,  unnatural  in 
her;  she  is  cunning,  through  all  her  affected 
primness  ("  For  all  the  spice  of  your  hypoc- 
risy," says  the  odious  Old  Lady  to  her);  and 
in  what  we  see  of  her  at  Wolsey's  banquet  she 
is  merely  frivolous.  In  all  Shakespeare's  work 
there  is  no  such  example  of  a  character  so 
marred  in  the  making,  so  unintentionally  de- 
graded (after  Massinger's  inveterate  manner) 
as  this  of  Anne.  I  would  rather  think  that 
Shakespeare  began  his  career  with  Lavinia 
than  that  he  ended  it  with  Anne. 

Turning  to  the  character  of  Henry  VIII,  we 
find  a  showy  figure,  who  plays  his  part  of  king 
not  without  effect.  Looking  deeper,  we  find 
that  there  is  nothing  deeper  to  discover.  The 
Henry  of  history  is  a  puzzling  character,  but 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII     111 

the  Henry  of  a  play  should  be  adequately 
conceived  and  intelligibly  presented.     What- 
ever disguise  he  may  choose  to  assume  towards 
the  men  and  women  who  walk  beside  him  on 
the  boards,  to  us  he  must  be  without  disguise. 
As  it  is,  we  know  no  more  than  after  reading 
Holinshed   whether   the   Henry   of   the   play 
believed  or  did  not  believe,  or  what  partial 
belief  he  had,  in  those  "  scruples,"  for  instance, 
to   which   he   refers,    not   without   a   certain 
unction.     He   is   illogical,    insubstantial,    the 
mere  superficial  presentment  of  a  deeply  inter- 
esting historical  figure,  who  would,  we  may  be 
sure,  have  had  intense  interest  for  Shakespeare, 
and  to  whom  Shakespeare  would  have  given 
his  keenest  thought,  his  finest  workmanship. 
A  greater  opportunity  still  is  lost  in  the  case 
of  Wolsey.    We  hear  a  great  deal  of  his  com- 
manding qualities,  but  where  do  we  see  them? 
Arrogance   we   see,    and   craft,   but   nowhere 
does  he  produce  upon  us  that  impression  of 
tremendous  power,  of  magnificence,  in  good 
and  evil,  which  it  is  clearly  intended  that  he 
should     produce.     Is    it    credible    that    the 
dramatist  who,  in  the  shape  of  a  swoln  and 
deluded  Falstaff,  drives  in  upon  us  the  impres- 


112    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

sion  of  the  man's  innate  power  with  every 
word  that  he  utters,  and  through  all  his  buf- 
fetings  and  disgraces,  should,  with  every  ad- 
vantage of  opportunity,  with  such  a  figure, 
ready  made  to  his  hand,  as  Wolsey,  have  given 
us  this  merely  formal  transcript  from  Holin- 
shed,  this  "thing  of  shreds  and  patches?" 
How  dramatically  would  Shakespeare  have 
worked  the  ascending  fortunes  of  the  man  to  a 
climax;  with  what  crushing  effect,  and  yet 
how  inevitably,  brought  in  the  moment  of 
downfall!  As  it  is,  the  effect  is  at  once  trivial 
and  spasmodic,  and  the  famous  soliloquies, 
even,  when  one  looks  at  them  as  they  really 
are,  but  fine  rhetorical  preachments,  spoken 
to  the  gallery;  fine,  rhetorical,  moving,  memo- 
rable, but  not  the  epilogue  of  a  broken  fortune, 
the  last  words  of  a  bitterness  worse  than  death, 
as  Shakespeare  or  as  nature  would  have  given 
them.  One  feels  that  there  is  no  psychology 
underneath  this  big  figure :  it  stands,  and  then 
it  is  doubled  up  by  a  blow;  but  one  sees  with 
due  clearness  neither  why  it  stood  so  long 
nor  why  it  fell  so  suddenly.  The  events 
happen,  but  they  are  not  brought  about 
by  that  subtle  logic  which,  in  Hamlet  or  in  Lear, 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII     113 

constructs  the  action  out  of  the  character,  and 
so  enables  us  to  follow,  to  understand,  every 
change,  however  sudden  and  unlooked-for, 
in  the  uncertain  fortunes  of  a  tormented  human 
creature  struggling  with  the  powers  of  fate  and 
of  his  own  nature. 

Now  all  this,  so  incredible  in  Shakespeare,  is 
precisely  what  we  find  again  and  again  in  his 
contemporaries,  and  nowhere  more  than  in 
Fletcher  and  Massinger.  In  Shakespeare, 
never  neglectful  of  the  requirements  of  the 
stage,  the  picturesqueness  is  made  to  grow 
out  of  the  real  nature  of  things:  Fletcher  and 
Massinger,  only  too  often,  are  ready  to  sacri- 
fice the  strict  logic  of  character  to  the  momen- 
tary needs  of  a  dramatic  spectacle,  the  stage- 
interest  of  sudden  reverses.  And  in  all  that 
I  have  been  saying  of  the  character-drawing 
which  we  see  in  this  play,  little  has  been  said 
which  would  not  lead  us  to  assign  this  work, 
so  far  beneath  Shakespeare,  to  such  fine  but 
imperfect  dramatic  poets  as  Fletcher  and 
Massinger. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  evidences  of  Fletcher's 
metre  which  we  find  in  certain  parts  of  the 
play,  evidences  which  seem  scarcely  to  admit 


114    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

of  a  doubt.  But  I  confess  that  the  metre  and 
language  of  the  non-Fletcherian  portion  do  not 
seem  to  me  by  any  means  so  clearly  assign- 
able to  Massinger.  Massinger's  verse  is  a 
close  imitation  of  the  later  verse  of  Shake- 
speare; but  it  is  an  imitation  which  stops 
short  at  the  end  of  no  very  lengthy  a  tether. 
The  verse  of  the  non-Fletcherian  portion  of 
Henry  VIII  rings  neither  true  Shakespeare 
nor  true  Massinger,  and  I  know  of  no  other 
dramatist  to  whom  it  can  be  attributed. 
There  are  lines  and  passages  which,  if  I  came 
across  them  in  an  anonymous  play,  I  should 
assign  without  hesitation  to  Massinger;  there 
are  also  lines  and  passages  to  which  I  can  recol- 
lect no  parallel  in  all  his  works.  Mr.  Boyle, 
in  his  valuable  paper  already  quoted,  gives  a 
certain  number  of  "parallel  passages"  in 
support  of  the  Massinger  authorship,  but  I 
cannot  say  that  they  appear  to  me  altogether 
conclusive.  Nor  is  the  argument  from  sup- 
posed historical  allusions,  by  which  he  assigns 
the  play  to  1616  or  1617,  a  date  which  would 
favour  the  theory  that  Massinger  and  Fletcher 
wrote  together,  anything  more  than  vaguely 
conjectural.  As  I  have  said  before,  we  really 


THE  QUESTION  OF  HENRY  VIII    115 

do  not  know  when  this  play  was  written; 
there  is  nothing  to  forbid  the  assumption  that 
it  was  a  new  play  in  1613,  there  is  nothing  to 
forbid  the  assumption  that  it  was  not  written 
till  1616  or  1617.  The  backward  limit  of 
date  is  indeed  fixed  by  the  characteristics  of 
the  metre;  but  the  very  slight  evidence  which 
identifies  the  play  of  Henry  VIII  as  we  have 
it,  with  the  play  All  is  True,  which  was  being 
performed  on  the  occasion  of  the  Globe  fire, 
is  not  conclusive  enough  to  stand  in  the  way  of 
a  later  date,  should  a  later  date  seem  to  be 
demanded  by  other  considerations.  We  are 
thus  free  to  deal  with  the  question  of  author- 
ship entirely  on  internal  evidence.  The  like- 
ness between  the  verse  of  Shakespeare  and 
such  verse  as: 

Turn  me  away  and  let  the  foul'st  contempt 
Shut  door  upon  me,  and  so  give  me  up 
To  the  sharpest  kind  of  justice 

is  so  close  as  to  seem  almost  beyond  imitation. 
Yet  of  two  difficulties,  is  it  not  easier  to 
imagine  someone  coming  so  near  to  Shake- 
speare's technique  in  verse  than  Shakespeare 
falling  so  far  below  the  level  of  his  imagination? 
I  have  already  given  my  reasons  for  believing 


116    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

that  Shakespeare  wrote  neither  the  whole  nor 
a  part  of  the  play,  and  that  Fletcher  did  write 
certain  portions  of  it.  But  I  cannot  hold  with 
any  assurance  that  the  second  author  has  yet 
been  discovered.  It  seems  not  impossible  that 
this  second  author  was  Massinger. 

1890. 


VIII.    ROMEO  AND  JULIET 

THE  play  of  Romeo  and  Juliet  is  like  a 
piece  of  music,  and  it  is  the  music  which 
all  true  lovers  have  heard  in  the  air  since 
they  began  listening  to  one  another's  voices. 
Here,  for  once,  youth  becomes  conscious  of 
itself,  and  of  the  charm  which  is  passing  out 
of  the  world  with  its  passing.  A  young  man 
wrote  this  wise  and  passionate  eulogy  of 
youth;  and  it  is  that  contemporaneous  heat 
of  blood  in  it  which  has  kept  the  names  of 
these  two  young  lovers  alive  in  men's  minds 
as  the  perfect  exemplars  of  unspoiled  love. 
Love  in  youth  is  an  emotion  that  may  well 
seem  exaggerated  "to  animals  that  do  not 
love";  and  if  the  passion  of  Romeo  and 
Juliet  is  at  times  as  clamorous  as  Italian  love 
in  Italian  operas,  that  leaves  it  perhaps  all 
the  more  like  the  thing  which  it  renders  so 
frankly.  In  Ferdinand  and  Miranda,  in  Per- 
dita  and  Florizel,  there  is  a  more  subtly  human 
poetry  than  in  Romeo  or  Juliet;  only  we 

117 


118    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

remember  that  for  its  poetry,  while  we  remem- 
ber this  as  if  it  were  love  itself. 

Compared  with  one  of  Shakespeare's  later 
women,  with  Imogen,  for  instance,  Juliet 
is  but  a  sketch;  she  lives,  but  only  hi  her 
love;  as  Romeo,  indeed,  but  for  his  love,  in 
any  hasty  and  ardent  youth  out  of  whom 
passion  strikes  unlooked-for  sparks  of  imagina- 
tion. But  it  is  precisely  by  this  concentration 
upon  the  development  and  consequences  of 
one  impulse,  irresistible  and  yet  ineffectual, 
that  Shakespeare  has  given  us,  not  this  or 
that  adorable  person  who,  among  other  things, 
loves,  but  two  lovers,  who,  besides  loving, 
just  remember  to  live.  They  have  but  one 
desire,  and  this  they  attain;  so  that  they 
must  be  said  to  have  succeeded  in  life.  But 
they  have  no  force  over  circumstances;  they 
bend  to  their  will  only  the  consent  of  a  few 
hours. 

In  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  in  which  we 
see  the  other  side  of  love,  played  out  before 
the  world  on  the  stage  of  the  world,  the  two 
eager  and  calculating  lovers  have  the  larger 
part  of  a  lifetime  given  to  them  to  love  and 
hate  in.  This  play,  as  Coleridge  has  noted, 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET  119 

"should  be  perused  in  mental  contrast  with 
Romeo  and  Juliet"  It  is  indeed  in  these  two 
plays  that  Shakespeare  expounds  the  whole 
art  of  love.  It  may  be  that  he  has  left  some- 
thing over;  for  there  is  another  garden 
besides  Juliet's  in  which  Sakuntala  walked; 
and  Isolde,  in  Wagner's  music,  has  added  a 
cry  to  "the  desire  of  the  woman  for  the 
desire  of  the  man."  But  the  whole  art,  cer- 
tainly, is  in  those  two  plays.  Romeo  and  Juliet 
is  the  breviary  of  lovers  who  have  loved  young 
and  at  first  sight. 

Romeo,  when  we  first  see  him,  is  already 
in  love  with  love;  but  Juliet  has  learned 
nothing  yet  from  experience.  To  be  married, 
says  she,  is  "  an  honor  that  I  dream  not  of." 
Love  has  not  yet  been  thought  of;  marriage, 
about  which  she  has  heard  her  mother  talk, 
is  a  grave  thing,  an  honour.  When  she  sees 
Romeo  she  gives  him  her  heart  as  simply 
as  her  hand;  innocent,  unshamed  nature 
speaks  out  of  her  mouth  with  the  simplicity 
of  a  child  saying,  I  am  tired,  I  am  hungry. 
She  is  as  eager  to  be  loved  as  if  she  knew 
that  her  moments  in  the  world  were  counted, 
and  that  there  is  no  other  earthly  flame  which 


120    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

can  give  a  little  light  and  heat  on  this  side 
of  the  grave.  Turn  from  that  lyric  scene  in 
the  garden  to  the  scene  in  which  Cleopatra 
enters  leaning  on  the  shoulder  of  Antony, 
and  saying  her  slow,  experienced  first  words, 

If  it  be  love  indeed,  tell  me  how  much. 

She  has  set  bounds  to  her  passion,  and  a 
narrow  limit  to  love.  Love,  to  her,  is  hedged 
in  by  the  senses,  and  these  are  mortal.  But 
Juliet,  saying  the  words  as  her  instinct  teaches 
them  to  her,  can  say,  truly: 

My  bounty  is  as  boundless  as  the  sea, 
My  love  as  deep;  the  more  I  give  to  thee, 
The  more  I  have,  for  both  are  infinite  1 

The  unrealised  idea  of  love  can  suggest  to 
her  neither  reservation  nor  any  ending;  she 
responds  to  it  with  the  entire  energy  of  her 
being. 

Love,  in  Romeo  and  in  Juliet,  is  first  an 
inspiration,  then  a  religion,  then  a  madness. 
Both  awaken  as  if  from  a  dream,  and  the 
awakening  is  to  that  true  reality  which 
henceforth  shuts  them  off  from  the  world, 
as  if  in  a  deeper  dream.  The  first  love-scene 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET  121 

in  the  garden  is  a  duet  of  two  astonishments. 
Each  is  amazed  that  such  a  moment  can  find 
them,  and  that  they  can  be  ready  for  such  a 
moment.  Instantly  it  becomes  incredible  to 
them  that  anything  else  could  have  happened. 
They  have  only  to  exchange  hearts.  But 
that  has  been  done  already.  When?  When 
Romeo  leaves  his  wife  after  their  one  night 
of  love  it  is  with  a  profound  peace  that  they 
say  over  to  one  another  that  divine  aubade 
which  the  lark  and  the  nightingale  seem  to  say 
for  them.  Death  is  behind  them  and  before 
them,  and  Juliet,  looking  down  on  her  lover 
as  he  lingers  in  the  garden,  sees  him,  with  an 
"ill-divining  soul." 

As  one  dead  in  the  bottom  of  a  tomb. 

To  the  end  their  love  is  a  sacred  madness;  it 
fills  every  word  that  they  are  to  speak,  as  it 
has  filled  every  corner  of  their  being.  It  exalts 
and  purifies  their  words  with  its  own  intel- 
lectual purity,  as  it  has  transfigured  their 
souls;  imagination  comes  into  the  verse, 
sweeping  it  clean  of  fancy.  It  is  not  the  same 
Romeo  as  the  gentle  lover  of  the  garden 
("I  would  I  were  thy  bird"),  or  even  as 


122    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

the  grave  and  tender  lover  of  Juliet's  chamber 
("How  is't,  my  soul?  let's  talk,  it  is  not  day"), 
who  rises  to  a  kind  of  triumph  as  he  looks  on 
the  dead  body,  as  he  thinks: 

For  here  lies  Juliet,  and  her  beauty  makes 

This  vault  a  feasting  presence  full  of  light. 

I  will  stay  with  thee; 

And  never  from  this  palace  of  dim  night 

Depart  again :  here,  here  will  I  remain 

With  worms  that  are  thy  chambermaids;  0,  here 

Will  I  set  up  my  everlasting  rest; 

And  shake  the  yoke  of  inauspicious  stars 

From  this  world-wearied  flesh. 

Lovers  live  by  apprehension;  love  makes 
every  man  superstitious;  and  throughout  the 
play  there  is  a  continual  muttering  of  omens 
and  presages,  like  warning  notes  striking 
through  love-music.  We  are  warned  from  the 
beginning : 

These  violent  delights  have  violent  ends. 
Therefore  love  moderately;  long  love  does  so, 
Take  heed,  take  heed,  for  such  die  miserable. 

Just  before  he  is  to  hear  the  news  that  Juliet 
is  dead,  Romeo  has  dreamed  an  ambiguous 
dream,  from  which  he  draws  comfort: 

My  dreams  presage  some  joyful  news  at  hand. 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET  123 

Hearing  of  her  death,  he  has  but  one  thing 
to  say,  for  a  calamity  so  immovable  has  struck 
him  atheist: 

Is  it  even  so?  then  I  deny  you,  stars! 

In  this  play,  in  which  love  seems  to  be 
everything,  and  nothing  else  to  matter,  Shake- 
speare has  created  a  whole  world  around  these 
two  central  figures,  and  by  so  doing  he  has 
given  us,  not  love  in  the  abstract  of  a  brief 
lyric,  but  love  living  its  own  deaf  and  blind 
life  in  a  world  busied  about  other  matters. 
The  action  takes  place  during  five  days,  and 
in  this  precipitancy  we  see  Shakespeare's 
aim  at  giving  us  the  essential  part  of  love,  love 
in  its  intensity,  not  its  duration.  He  begins 
sharply  in  the  streets,  with  that  "motley  dance 
of  all  ranks  and  ages  to  one  tune,"  as  Coleridge 
says,  "as  if  the  horn  of  Huon  had  been  playing 
behind  the  scenes."  The  atmosphere  is  pre- 
pared; we  see  hate,  Italy,  and  the  heat: 

For  now  these  hot  days  is  the  mad  blood  stirring. 

After  the  fighting  with  swords  comes  the 
fighting  of  wits.  As  the  swords  were  drawn 
idly,  for  trivial  reasons,  and  by  those  who  had 
no  personal  share  in  the  hereditary  feud  of  two 


124    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

houses,  so  Mercutio  and  the  other  talkers 
talk  for  effect,  "by  art  as  well  as  nature," 
and  only  then  seem  to  themselves,  as  they  put 
it,  "sociable."  This  antic  and  fantastic  talk, 
part  Euphues,  part  fashion  of  the  court, 
part  parody,  which,  if  it  has  lost  some  of  the 
bloom  of  its  youth,  keeps  nimble  to  this  day, 
may  be  contrasted  with  the  crueler  banter  of 
the  Restoration:  each  images  the  lighter 
"form  and  pressure"  of  an  age,  and  in  only  one 
was  there  room  for  poetry.  There  is  youth 
in  Shakespeare's  gaiety  of  humor  in  this 
prelude  to  tragedy;  it  is  as  if  his  genius  had 
not  grown  wholly  accustomed  to  itself,  and 
must  turn  every  amble  into  a  steeplechase, 
so  eager  was  it  for  display,  for  the  mere  excite- 
ment of  exercise. 

And  outside  this  society  of  wits  and  brawlers, 
probably  so  true  to  the  circumstances  of  Shake- 
speare's time,  there  is  another  homelier  group : 
the  old  Capulets  and  the  immortal  Nurse. 
The  others  come,  glitter,  and  fade  out;  for, 
when  true  passions  have  begun  to  work,  these 
mummers  and  jesters  have  no  further  place. 
But  the  people  about  Juliet  are  set  there  for 
the  sake  of  their  fixed  opposition  to  her  auite 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET  123 

otherwise  fixed  resolve.  They  are  age,  cus- 
tom, the  family,  the  vulgar;  they  are  the  world 
itself,  in  its  lumbering  journey  along  its  own 
road.  Shakespeare,  after  his  wont,  has  been 
prodigal  with  them;  the  comic  creation  of 
the  Nurse  is  as  full  of  his  genius  as  the  tragic 
creation  of  Juliet.  Indeed,  when  he  makes 
her  speak,  she  speaks  faultlessly,  and  is  never 
out  of  key;  while  Juliet  often  speaks  for  love 
or  for  Shakespeare,  in  the  manner  of  a  poet 
not  yet  willing  to  sacrifice  the  poetry  to  the 
drama,  and  not  yet  able  to  fuse  drama  and 
poetry  in  one. 

In  the  Nurse  we  have  the  satiric  after- 
part  of  Greek  drama,  brought  boldly  into 
the  midst  of  the  tragic  action;  in  Friar 
Laurence  we  have  one  aspect  of  the  chorus, 
that  aspect  in  which  it  fulfilled  Schlegel's 
partial  definition,  and  became  "the  ideal 
spectator."  The  one  point  fixed,  where  all 
else  is  turning,  he  represents  philosophy  among 
the  passions,  judging  them,  humouring  them, 
and  helpless  and  disturbing  enough  when  he  has 
succeeded  in  setting  them  moving  to  his 
own  pattern  of  abstract  wisdom.  The  Nurse 
and  the  Capulets,  who  would  also  fetter  a 


126    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

live  passion,  or  teach  it  the  direction  in  which 
it  should  grow,  are  seen  even  more  helplessly 
at  its  mercy.  It  is  with  an  immense  tragic 
gaiety  that  Shakespeare  shows  us  this  ancient 
busybody  hobbling  after  her  mistress,  run- 
ning her  errands  and  the  errands  of  her  mother; 
looking  wisely  after  affairs,  as  she  and  the 
mother  suppose;  with  all  the  instincts  of  the 
procuress,  rendered  harmless  by  the  invincible 
innocence  of  Juliet.  She  is  the  first  of  those 
pets  and  preachers  of  iniquity  who  came  to 
ripe  philosophy  in  Falstaff  and  to  the  scaven- 
ger's wisdom  in  Thersites. 

It  is  one  of  the  signs  of  that  judgment  which 
was  part  of  the  genius  of  Shakespeare  that  he 
should  have  begun  by  working  on  what  lay 
nearest  to  his  hand,  and  with  the  materials 
which  he  was  sure  that  he  had  in  his  posses- 
sion. It  is  probable  that  Romeo  and  Juliet 
was  written  a  few  years  after  the  two  narra- 
tive poems,  Venus  and  Adonis  and  The  Rape 
of  Lucrece;  and  in  these  poems  we  see  Shake- 
speare exercising  himself,  so  to  speak,  by  giving 
the  most  elaborate  expression  to  sensual  and 
to  heroically  domestic  love.  In  the  comedies 
there  is  scarcely  a  perceptible  note  of  prepara- 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET  127 

tion.  Love  is  a  game,  a  sentiment,  a  thing  of 
fashion,  preference,  polite  employment;  it 
is  worn  as  an  ornament,  the  heart  on  the 
sleeve  wholly  as  a  motive  of  decoration. 
We  are  no  nearer  to  genuine  passion  than 
is  Romeo  when  he  laments  over  the  cold- 
ness of  Rosaline.  "Night's  candles"  are  not 
yet  "burnt  out";  the  lover  has  not  yet 
said,  "It  is  the  east,  and  Juliet  is  the  sun!" 
But  the  two  poems  lay  down  a  kind  of  founda- 
tion, solid  in  the  earth,  on  which  to  raise  this 
chapel  of  romantic  love.  It  is  through  the 
senses  that  Shakespeare  has  found  out  love, 
and  finding  it,  he  has  not  plucked  the  flower 
away  from  the  rest.  The  passion  of  Romeo 
for  Juliet  and  of  Juliet  for  Romeo  is  a  part 
of  nature;  not  a  whim,  not  a  dream,  not  a 
sick  fancy  bred  in  the  brain,  but  nature 
itself.  It  is  sex,  although  the  idea  of  sex  is 
overflowed  by  a  divine  oblivion;  Romeo  sighs 
after  "the  white  wonder  of  dear  Juliet's  hand," 
and  Juliet's  is  the  most  honest,  the  most 
day-light  passion  that  has  ever  been  spoken 
in  words;  it  speaks  as  straight,  feels  as  deeply, 
and  adds  as  much  courtesy  to  passion  as  the 
heroic  love  which  takes  on  chivalry  without 


128    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

quitting  nature  in  Gottfried  of  Strasburg's 
Tristan  und  Isolde. 

Although  Romeo  and  Juliet  contains  certain 
lines  and  passages  which  are  as  mature  in 
imagination  and  as  brilliant  in  execution  as 
anything  which  Shakespeare  ever  wrote,  the 
main  part  of  the  play  has  all  the  characteristics 
of  his  early,  somewhat  formal  and  somewhat 
exuberant,  period.  There  are  not  only  rhymes 
in  couplets,  but  crossed  rhymes,  in  fixed 
stanzas;  the  blank  verse  is  often  monoto- 
nous, line  following  line,  for  five  lines  at  a 
time,  with  unvarying  pauses;  sometimes  it  is 
as  bad  as 

Away  to  heaven,  respective  lenity, 
And  fire-eyed  fury  be  my  conduct  now! 

It  can  rave  like  "Jeronimo,"  or  split  hairs 
with  the  painful  ingenuity  of  the  period,  as 
in  Juliet's  series  of  puns  on  the  word  "Ay" 
and  the  letter  "I."  The  writing  is  often  self- 
conscious;  the  narrative  passages  have  a 
certain  stiffness.  We  see  Shakespeare  still 
unwilling  to  trust  wholly  to  his  ear,  to  abandon 
himself  frankly  to  his  imagination.  In  the 
midst  of  some  of  his  most  splendid  writing  he 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET  129 

seems  to  check  himself,  and  stops  to  write-in 
a  passage  on  some  accepted  model. 

There  is  a  charm  of  its  own  in  immaturity, 
and,  for  the  most  part,  when  it  is  the  imma- 
turity of  a  vast  genius,  some  rare  beauty, 
growing  out  of  the  mere  happy  accidents 
of  growth,  which  must  be  lost  with  ripeness. 
Here  we  have  a  whole  spring-tide  of  buds; 
"spring  with  its  odors,  its  flowers,  and  its 
transiency,"  as  Coleridge  says,  in  that  ex- 
quisite passage  in  which  he  turns  the  play  into 
an  allegory  of  spring.  It  is  the  first  play  in 
which  Shakespeare  touches  maturity,  but  he 
touches  it  only,  and  relapses  into  the  defects 
and  graces  that  belong  to  an  incomparable 
promise.  There  are  whole  passages,  like  the 
lament  of  the  Nurse  and  the  Capulets  over 
Juliet,  which  are  purely  lyrical,  or  like  answer- 
ing music.  The  aubade  again  is  frankly  music 
and  a  song.  Juliet's  monologue  before  drink- 
ing the  sleep-drink  is  the  first  of  those  many 
curious  questionings  of  death,  hi  which  Claudio 
is  to  lead  the  way  to  Hamlet.  It  has  been 
said  by  Hazlitt,  with  too  hasty  an  emphasis^ 
that  " Romeo  is  Hamlet  in  love."  There  are 
touches  in  him  of  what  was  probably  most  like 


130    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

Shakespeare  in  Hamlet;  that  is  to  say,  of 
passionate  absorption,  of  a  will  which  seems 
infirm  because  it  is  too  much  at  the  mercy 
of  deeper  questionings;  but  if  Romeo  some- 
times speaks  for  Shakespeare,  a  little  aside 
from  his  character,  Hamlet  is  a  wholly  con- 
sistent part  of  Shakespeare,  detached  finally 
from  his  creator. 

It  is  natural  that  Romeo  and  Juliet  should 
always  have  been  a  favorite  with  actors.  It 
is  full  of  pictures;  it  appeals  to  the  most 
popular  of  the  emotions;  its  poetry  is  only 
too  well  fitted  for  recitation.  There  never 
was  an  actress  under  fifty  who  did  not  feel  her- 
self a  Juliet,  or  an  actor  under  sixty  who  did 
not  see  himself  as  Romeo.  For  once,  Shake- 
speare wrote  great  poetry  which  the  mob 
could  not  but  love,  could  not  but  find  itself 
at  home  with.  Juliet  is  the  Englishman's 
symbol  for  Helen;  and  Shakespeare  has  made 
her  the  name  for  virtue  in  love,  fatal  indeed 
to  herself  and  to  Romeo,  but  innocently  fatal, 
and,  unlike  Helen,  healing  by  death  the 
discord  which  has  not  been  stirred  up  by  her 
life.  We  are  far  from  "  the  couple  of  un- 
fortunate lovers"  of  Brooke's  Tragicall  History 


ROMEO  AND  JULIET  131 

of  Romeus  and  Juliet,  "written  first  in  Italian 
by  Bandell,  and  nowe  in  Englishe  by  AT. 
Br.,"  one  of  Shakespeare's  sources,  whom 
Brooke  hastily  shows  us  "finally,  by  all 
means  of  unhonest  life,  hasting  to  most  un- 
happy death."  "The  two  hours'  traffic  of 
our  stage"  was,  to  Shakespeare,  concerned  with 
"the  misad ventured  piteous  overthrows"  of 
"a  pair  of  star-crossed  lovers":  he  lays  the 
blame  on  no  one,  not  even  on  fate,  giving  us 
the  story  as  it  happened; 

For  never  was  a  story  of  more  woe 
Than  this  of  Juliet  and  her  Romeo, 

he  adds  quite  simply. 
1903. 


IX.    CYMBELINE 

IF  it  could  be  assumed,  with  any  strong 
probability,  that  Cymbeline,  which  ends  the 
First  Folio,  was  really  the  last  play  which 
Shakespeare  wrote,  several  difficulties  which 
present  themselves  in  connection  with  it 
might  be  resolved  at  once.  It  contains  one 
of  the  most  perfect  of  Shakespeare's  women, 
two  gallant  boys,  a  notable  villain,  with  rapid, 
summarising  studies  in  jealousy,  a  murderous 
queen,  a  royal  clown,  done  as  if  from  memory, 
or  on  second  thoughts.  There  are  pastoral 
scenes  in  it  which  can  only  be  compared  with 
the  pastoral  scenes  in  The  Winter's  Tale',  and 
they  are  written  in  verse  of  the  same  free  and 
happy  cadence.  Yet  the  play  is  thrown  to- 
gether loosely,  rather  as  if  it  were  a  novel,  to 
be  read,  than  a  play,  to  be  acted.  The  action 
is  complicated  here,  neglected  there.  A  scene 
of  sixteen  lines  is  introduced  to  say  that  the 
tribunes  are  required  to  raise  more  forces  for 
the  war,  and  that  Lucius  is  to  be  general. 

132 


CYMBELINE  133 

The  last  scene  is  five  hundred  lines  long,  and 
has  to  do  as  much  business  as  all  the  rest  of  the 
play.  The  playwright  seems  no  longer  to  have 
patience  with  his  medium;  it  is  as  if  his  inter- 
est had  gone  out  of  it,  and  he  were  using  it  as 
the  only  makeshift  at  hand. 

Most  artists,  at  the  end  of  their  careers, 
become  discontented  with  the  form  in  which 
they  have  worked.  They  have  succeeded 
through  obedience  to  this  form,  but  it  seems  to 
them  that  a  rarer  success  lies,  uncaptured, 
outside  those  limits.  They  are  tempted  by 
what  seems  lawless  in  life  itself;  by  what  is 
certainly  various  and  elastic  in  life.  They  are 
impatient  with  the  slowness  of  results,  with 
their  rigidity,  inside  those  inexorable  limits. 
The  technique  which  they  have  perfected 
seems  to  them  too  perfect;  something  cries 
out  of  chains,  and  they  would  set  the  voice, 
or  Ariel,  free. 

That  spirit,  I  think,  we  see  in  the  later  plays 
of  Shakespeare,  in  which  not  only  does  metre 
dissolve  and  reform,  in  some  new,  fluctuant 
way  of  its  own,  but  the  whole  structure  becomes 
vaporous,  and  floats  out  through  the  solid 
walls  of  the  theatre.  Even  The  Tempest, 


134    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

when  I  have  seen  it  acted,  lost  the  greater  part 
of  its  magic,  and  was  no  longer  that  "  cloud- 
capt "  promontory  in  " faery  seas  forlorn," 
the  last  foothold  of  human  life  on  the  edge  of 
the  world.  What  sense  of  loss  do  we  feel  when 
we  see  Othello  acted?  Othello  has  nothing 
to  lose;  the  playwright  has  never  forgotten  the 
walls  of  his  theatre.  In  Cymbeline  he  is  frankly 
tired  of  them. 

Cymbeline  is  a  romance,  made  out  of  Holin- 
shed,  and  Boccaccio,  and  perhaps  nursery 
stories,  and  it  is  that  happiest  kind  of  romance, 
which  strays  harmlessly  through  tragic  in- 
cidents in  which  only  the  bad  people  come  to 
grief.  All  the  time  things  seem  to  be  knotting 
themselves  up  inextricably;  every  one  is 
playing  at  cross  purposes  with  every  one,  as 
in  a  children's  game,  immensely  serious  to  the 
children;  and  one  is  allowed  the  thrill  which 
comes  out  of  other  people's  dangers,  and  the 
pleasant  consciousness  that  everything  will 
be  all  right  in  the  end.  There  are  plays  of 
Shakespeare  which  are  almost  painfully  real, 
in  their  so  much  more  than  reality;  this 
play,  even  in  its  most  desperate  complication, 
is  never  allowed  to  come  too  close  to  us  for 


CYMBELlNE  135 

pleasure.  We  are  following  the  track  of  a 
romance,  and  in  countries  where  no  one  is 
sick  or  sorry  beyond  measure. 

The  two  central  figures  of  the  romance  are 
Posthumus  and  Imogen,  and  it  is  those  two 
unlucky  lovers  who  wander  through  the  forest, 
seeking  and  flying  from  each  other,  along 
roads  chosen  mockingly  for  them  by  the  fate 
which  lies  in  things  as  they  are.  Posthumus 
is  a  new  kind  of  hero  of  romance.  He  is  a 
showy  gentleman,  who  has  the  gift  of  winning 
every  one  to  his  side,  including  Imogen. 

By  her  selection  may  be  truly  read 
What  kind  of  man  he  is, 

says  the  First  Gentleman  in  the  first  scene, 
plausibly,  but  not  with  knowledge:  his  praises 
are  to  be  taken  at  the  valuation  of  common 
rumour.  Married  to  an  incomparable  woman, 
Posthumus  has  never  known  her.  To  doubt 
her  is  not  to  have  known  her.  The  jealousy 
of  Posthumus  is  circumstantial,  a  jealousy 
of  dull  senses,  to  which  the  imagination  has 
never  spoken.  He  doubts  her  at  the  first 
rumour  of  mere  coincidence.  I  should  not 
say  doubts;  he  has  not  a  doubt;  her  dishonor 


136    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

is  palpable  to  him.  He  hugs  the  certainty, 
driving  it  into  him  like  a  knife  in  a  foe's  hand. 
He  will  not  wait  to  know  all  that  can  be  said 
against  her;  he  is  convinced  from  the  first. 
Rage  makes  him  voluble,  and  then  inarticulate; 
"I'll  do  something,"  is  all  that  he  is  quite 
sure  of.  He  orders  her  death,  and  when  he  is 
told  that  she  is  dead,  he  cries: 

I'll  die 

For  thee,  0  Imogen,  even  for  whom  my  life 
Is,  every  breath,  a  death. 

He  is  always  crying  out  like  a  child  or  a  mad- 
man, always  against  sense,  too  soon  or  too 
late.  He  is  the  slave  of  the  moment,  always 
in  its  power  for  evil;  and  it  is  against  all  his 
endeavours,  and  against  all  probability,  that 
he  ends  happily,  having  failed  in  every  attempt 
to  destroy  his  own  happiness.  That,  perhaps, 
is  the  irony,  as  much  as  the  mercy,  of  the 
play. 

Of  all  Shakespeare's  women  Imogen  is  the 
manliest  and  womanliest.  All  may  say  of  her, 
as  each  man  says  of  the  woman  whom  he  loves, 
that  for  him  she  is  faultless,  whatever  faults 
may  be  seen  in  her  by  others.  She  is  a 
woman  to  make  virtue  its  own  reward;  the 


CYMBELINE  137 

"infinite  variety"  of  the  wicked  seems  to  lurk 
in  her  under  some  saintly  disguise.  If  English- 
men can  point  to  this  picture  of  an  English- 
woman, and  say  that  it  is  true  to  nature, 
nothing  remains  to  be  said  in  praise  of  our 
women.  It  is  in  her  simplicity  that  Imogen 
is  greatest.  Nothing  is  too  hard  for  her  to  do 
easily,  nor  does  it  ever  occur  to  her  to  hesi- 
tate. She  puts  on  boy's  clothes  without  a 
thought  of  sex;  and  when,  at  the  end  of  the 
play,  she  finds  her  husband  again,  repentant 
and  ready  to  receive  her,  she  forgets  her 
disguise,  and  runs  to  him,  to  be  thrust  away 
by  the  inevitable  blunderer.  She  has  humour, 
a  witty  readiness  of  speech,  exquisitely  alert 
and  to  the  point.  Only  once  does  Shake- 
speare burden  her  with  those  forced  metaphors 
and  that  unnatural  ingenuity  of  discourse 
which  blemish  so  many  of  his  pages.  This  is 
in  the  scene  where  she  finds  the  headless 
body  of  Cloten  in  the  clothes  of  Posthumus, 
and  takes  the  dead  man  for  her  husband. 
Those  dreadful  lines  about — 

His  foot  Mercurial;  his  Martial  thigh; 

The  brawns  of  Hercules:  but  his  Jovial  face — 

Murder  in  heaven? — How — 'Tis  gone — 


138    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

are  nowhere  exceeded  in  Shakespeare  for  sheer 
unsuitability.  Else,  Imogen  is  a  model  of 
speech  as  of  honour,  justice,  and  mercy.  And, 
though  unbreakable,  she  has  that  woman's 
flexibility  which  carries  her  easily  through 
terrifying  adventures;  she  can  find  herself 
nowhere  where  she  is  not  at  home;  her  spirit 
is  always  (as  Cymbeline  says  of  her,  when, 
at  the  end, 

Posthumus  anchors  upon  Imogen, 
having  learned  trust  at  last)  a  kind  of 

harmless  lightning  hitting 
Each  object  with  a  joy. 

Round  these  two  lovers,  on  their  difficult 
way  through  the  entanglements  of  the  story, 
are  grouped  one  or  two  brave  companions  and 
a  motley  company  of  hinderers.  Of  these  the 
chief  is  lachimo.  lachimo  is  the  gentlemanly 
villain  through  vanity.  His  whole  intelligence 
is  not  let  out  to  evil,  as  with  lago;  he  enter- 
tains evil  unawares,  finding  some  unsuspected 
kinship  there.  He  believes  in  his  power  over 
women,  perhaps  rather  because  he  holds  them 
lightly  than  because  he  prizes  himself  highly. 


CYMBELINE  139 

He  has  probably  had  experiences  in  Italy  which 
have  seemed  to  prove  the  justice  of  his  esti- 
mate. The  Englishwoman,  though  a  new 
country  for  him,  awakes  none  of  his  sus- 
picions. It  is  his  creed  that  all  women  are 
alike;  only,  that  some  have  not  been  tempted. 
He  has  smiled  at  the  confidence  of  husbands; 
Posthumus  is  franker  than  the  others,  that  is 
all.  He  fully  expects  to  win  his  wager. 

After  he  has  talked  with  Imogen  for  a  few 
minutes,  he  realises  that  the  wager  is  lost, 
if  it  is  to  be  won  honestly.  He  does  not  seri- 
ously tempt  her:  he  makes  his  few  orna- 
mental passes,  and  drops  the  foil;  with  finesse, 
after  all,  convincing  her  of  the  innocence  of  his 
intentions.  His  vanity,  doubtless,  is  wounded ; 
and  it  is  really  his  vanity,  alert  to  defend  itself, 
which  sets  his  "Italian  blood"  to  "operate" 
so  instantly  the  dishonourable  trick  of  the 
coffer. 

To  the  Italian,  treachery  has  always  been 
something  of  a  fine  art.  Machiavelli  taught 
it  to  princes,  and  not  a  gipsy  could  be  cleaner 
of  conscience  after  a  lie  than  the  Neapolitan 
of  to-day.  To  have  lied  successfully  is  to 
have  shown  one's  ability,  much  more  subtly 


140    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

than  if  the  struggle  had  been  an  open  one, 
strength  against  strength.  lachimo  is  a  study 
in  the  Italian  temperament,  faultlessly  in- 
dicated, until  his  vehemence  of  remorse  at  the 
end  of  the  play  brings  him  to  a  good  end, 
perhaps  not  so  much  in  the  Italian  manner. 

The  Queen,  with  her  useless  poisons  which 
harm  no  one,  belongs  to  Shakespeare's  series 
of  wicked  queens,  most  of  them  constructed 
on  much  the  same  pattern,  but  leading  upward 
to  a  masterpiece  in  Lady  Macbeth.  Cymbe- 
line's  Queen  is,  so  far  as  her  action  is  concerned, 
a  busy-body,  a  meddler;  her  intentions  are 
criminal,  but  all  she  really  does  is  to  provide 
Imogen  with  a  sleeping-draught.  She  pulls 
some  of  the  strings  of  the  play,  herself  some- 
thing of  a  puppet.  Shakespeare  wants  the 
wicked  stepmother  of  all  the  legends,  and  he 
gives  us  a  wicked  stepmother  who  would  fit 
into  any  of  them. 

Her  son,  Cloten,  the  bullying  fool,  is  one  of 
Shakespeare's  mockeries  of  the  gentleman  by 
birth  who  is  scarcely  a  man  by  wits.  Shake- 
speare was  no  flatterer  of  the  people;  he 
respected  tyrants,  he  loved  the  pomp  of  kings. 
But  in  Cloten  he  shows  us  one  of  the  rags 


CYMBELINE  141 

which  may  go  to  the  making  of  that  pomp, 
hardly  laughing  as  he  holds  it  out;  all  the 
braveries  of  the  world  have  that  side  to  them. 
Here  and  there  he  gives  the  pitiable  thing  a 
few  sound  words  to  say;  on  "our  saltwater 
girdle,"  for  instance,  or  the  "If  Csesar  can  hide 
the  sun  from  us  with  a  blanket,  or  put  the  moon 
in  his  pocket."  Commentators  have  seen 
arguments  in  these  generous  lendings  for  sup- 
posing that  the  play  was  written  partly  at  one 
time  and  partly  at  another;  for  how,  they  say, 
can  the  "mere  fool"  of  the  first  act  be  "by  no 
means  deficient  in  manliness"  in  the  third? 
It  is  part  of  Shakespeare's  art  to  make  even 
stupidity  carry  divine  messages.  Even  this, 
the  muddiest  of  his  dolts,  can  transmit  heroism 
by  mistake. 

That  "mountainous  country  with  a  cave," 
in  Wales,  on  which  Cloten  intruded,  to  his 
destruction,  is  the  scenery  of  the  most  bracing 
scene  in  Shakespeare.  Here  we  breathe  moun- 
tain air,  and  are  among  natures  as  free  and 
healthy.  These  folk  of  the  high  rocks,  with 
their  princely  manners,  their  high  natural 
courtesy,  live  courtly  lives  in  the  open  air,  and 
attend  with  ceremony  upon  every  action. 


142    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

Shakespeare  is  careful  to  explain  that  the 
two  boys  are  none  of  "nature's  gentlemen," 
but  princely  by  birth,  though  brought  up  not 
to  know  it;  and  that  the  old  man  is  really 
a  great  lord  in  exile.  He  bids  us  look  on  what 
is  intrinsic  in  noble  descent,  after  having 
seen  how  that  too,  like  all  natural  forces,  can 
be  flawed  in  a  Cloten.  Guiderius  and  Arvira- 
gus  are  indeed  brothers  to  Imogen,  tempered 
in  the  same  steel.  They  are  to  other  men 
almost  what  she  is  to  other  women.  She  has 
been  unspoilt  by  civilisation;  they,  untouched 
by  it. 

It  is  around  this  old  man  and  these  delight- 
ful boys  that  most  of  what  is  best  in  the  play, 
most  after  Shakespeare's  heart,  we  may  be 
sure,  takes  place.  Lyric  beauty,  not  only 
in  the  incomparable  dirge,  fills  these  scenes  with 
enchantment.  Hardly  in  The  Winter's  Tale 
are  there  tenderer  things  said  about  flowers; 
nowhere  are  there  more  joyous  things  said 
about  light,  air,  and  the  gentleness  and  energy 
of  mere  life  in  the  sun  and  wind.  And, 
always,  blithely  and  instinctively  in  the  two 
boys,  with  the  gravity  of  experience  in  the 
old  man,  there  is  that  nobility  of  soul  which  is 


CYMBELINE  143 

perhaps  the  part  of  Shakespeare's  genius  which 
grew  most  steadily  to  the  last. 

His  feeling  for  nature,  also,  grew  or  matured 
steadily.  Shakespeare  loved,  no  doubt,  the 
woods  of  Arden  and  the  forest  ways  of  The 
Midsummer  Night's  Dream.  He  could  play 
with  them,  for  happy,  sufficient  purposes  of 
his  own.  But  it  was  not  till  his  work  was 
ending,  and  he  had  gone  through  the  world, 
weighing  it  and  judging  it,  and  making  it 
over  again  after  almost  its  own  miraculous 
pattern  of  life,  that  he  came  to  feel  the  earth. 
As  his  art  tired,  we  may  think,  of  the  play- 
house, so  his  nature,  which  had  been  content 
with  cities,  cried  out  for  something  which  was 
not  in  cities.  The  open  air,  the  sea,  the  fields, 
the  hills,  came  to  mean  to  him  something 
which  they  had  never  meant. 

The  ground  that  gave  them  first  has  them  again, 

he  can  say,  in  Cymbeline,  of  the  dead,  with  a 
profound  sense  of  the  earth,  and  of  our  roots 
there. 

In  Cymbeline,  as  in  all  Shakespeare's  later 
plays,  the  writing  is  for  the  most  part  moulded 
upon  the  thought,  with  a  closeness  very  dif- 


144    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

ferent  from  the  draped  splendours  of  the 
earlier  work.  It  is  often  condensed  into  a  kind 
of  hardness,  it  would  say  too  much  in  every 
word;  but  it  allows  itself  no  other  license. 
Often,  in  this  play,  it  is  chary  of  occasions  for 
fine  writing  by  the  way.  Take,  for  instance, 
the  soliloquy  of  Posthumus  in  prison  (V.  4). 
Compare  it  with  Claudio's  shuddering  pre- 
vision of  death  and  of  the  "thrilling  regions  of 
thick-ribbed  ice"  in  Measure  for  Measure', 
with  Hamlet's  reasoning  in  the  dark  of  a  sensi- 
tive (imagination,  fearful  of  uncertainties. 
Both  are  quick  with  feeling;  each  is  the 
outcry  of  a  naked  human  soul,  alone  with  the 
fear  of  death.  But  Posthumus,  who  is  willing 
to  die,  and  who  believes  that  "there  are  none 
want  eyes  to  direct  them  the  way  I  am  going 
but  such  as  wink  and  will  not  use  them/' 
argues  coldly  with  himself,  in  his  only  half- 
hearted invocation  of  the  gods.  The  solilo- 
quy is  a  masterpiece  of  that  difficult  kind  of 
writing  which  has  to  wring  a  kind  of  emotion 
out  of  the  absence  of  emotion  in  the  speaker. 
It  is  packed  with  thought,  with  ingenuities 
of  argument,  precisely  in  keeping  with  the 
situation. 


CYMBELINE  145 

In  the  speeches  of  Imogen  there  are  the  same 
clearness,  simplicity,  and  packed  meanings  of 
a  singularly  direct  kind.  That  soliloquy  before 
the  cave  of  Belarius,  beginning 

I  see  a  man's  life  is  a  tedious  one, 

is,  like  the  soliloquy  of  Posthumus,  all  made  up 
of  little  sentences,  each  half  a  line  long, 
springing  naturally  and  unexpectedly  out  of 
the  last  half  line,  in  that  way  which  Coleridge 
notes  as  characteristic  of  Shakespeare,  "just 
as  a  serpent  moves,  which  makes  a  fulcrum 
of  its  own  body,  and  seems  forever  twisting 
and  untwisting  its  own  strength."  There  is 
scarcely  a  figure  of  speech;  the  poetry  seems 
too  much  in  earnest,  too  eager  to  say  definite 
things  directly.  It  is  poetry  made  out  of  mere 
thinking  aloud,  with  all  the  starts  and  incon- 
sequences of  actual  thinking.  One  of  the 
speeches  is  the  most  breathless  in  Shakespeare. 
In  the  mountain  scenes,  the  verse  has  not 
only  lyric  beauty,  but  an  austere  quality  which 
keeps  just  so  much  of  splendour  as  can  be  at  the 
same  time  grave  and  subdued.  Rhetoric  has 
all  gone  out  of  the  verse,  nothing  is  loud  or 
showy  any  longer;  there  is  a  new  aim  at  that 


146    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

last  refinement  in  which  strength  comes  dis- 
guised, and  beauty  seems  a  casual  stranger. 
The  verse  itself  has  been  broken,  as  it  has  to  be 
broken  over  again  in  every  age,  as  soon  as  it 
has  come  to  perfection,  and  hardened  there. 
Read  a  speech  of  Imogen  after  a  speech  of 
Juliet,  and  it  will  seem  to  you,  at  first  sight, 
that  Imogen  is  speaking  almost  prose,  while 
Juliet  is  certainly  singing  poetry.  It  is  in  that 
apparent  approach  to  the  form  of  prose  that 
verse  finally  becomes  its  most  authentic  self. 
Juliet  has  her  few  notes,  and  no  more,  her 
formal  tunes;  while  Imogen  can  set  the  whole 
of  Shakespeare's  brain  to  a  music  as  various 
and  uncapturable  as  the  wind. 

1907. 


X.     TROILUS    AND  CRESSIDA 

IT  is  probable  that  in  this  play,  the  most 
tragical  of  all  comedies  and  the  most  comical 
of  all  tragedies,  Shakespeare  for  once  wrote 
to  please  himself;  and,  though  we  cannot 
take  literally  the  publisher's  note  to  the 
Second  Quarto,  that  "you  have  here  a  new 
play,  never  staled  with  the  stage,  never  clap- 
per-clawed with  the  palms  of  the  vulgar,"  it 
is  not  likely  that  what  we  now  read  is  precisely 
what  the  King's  Majesty's  Servants  acted  at 
the  Globe  Theatre.  What  they  acted,  and 
what  we  now  read,  was  certainly  not  all  from 
the  hand  of  Shakespeare.  The  Prologue, 
which  appears  for  the  first  time  in  the  Second 
Quarto. 

A  prologue  armed,  but  not  in  confidence 
Of  author's  pen  or  actor's  voice, 

has  the  cumbrous  bombast  of  a  thing  made  for 

the  occasion;  and  the  concluding  scenes  of  the 

play,  in  which  Dryden  rightly  saw  "  nothing 

147 


'148    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

but  a  confusion  of  drums  and  trumpets,  ex- 
cursions and  alarms,"  have  much  the  same 
note  of  forced  and  laboriously  measured  writ- 
ing. They  are  not  like  Shakespeare's  writing 
at  any  period;  they  may  possibly  belong 
to  some  rough  earlier  play  on  the  subject, 
from  which  Shakespeare,  in  his  easy  fashion, 
was  content  to  take  over  untouched  fragments, 
together  with  some  of  the  original  framework. 
The  play  as  we  have  it,  even  apart  from  these 
doubtful  scenes,  is  uncertainly  constructed, 
and  betrays  the  workmanship  of  different 
periods.  What  we  know  of  its  date  con- 
firms the  suspicion  that  Shakespeare  may  have 
worked  at  it  after  its  first  rough  completion. 
The  two  quartos,  identical  but  for  the  new 
title-page  and  preface  of  the  second,  were 
published  in  1609;  but  as  early  as  1599,  in 
the  satirical  play  Histriomastix,  there  is  an 
obvious  allusion  to  a  scene  in  a  Troilus  and 
Cressida  which  is  coupled  with  a  pun  on 
"shake"  and  "spear."  In  1603  there  is 
an  entry  in  the  Stationers'  Register  relating 
to  James  Roberts's  unsuccessful  attempt  to 
"get  sufficient  authority"  for  the  printing  of 
"the  book  of  Troilus  and  Cressida"',  in  Janu- 


TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  149 

ary,  1609,  the  publication  of  the  Quarto  is 
entered.  More  than  one  partial  revision,  at 
any  time  during  those  ten  years,  with  the 
possible  intrusion  of  the  meddling  hand  of  the 
Prologue-writer,  would  account  for  much  of 
what  seems  difficult,  at  first  sight,  to  account 
for  in  the  play  as  we  have  it.  If  we  accept 
the  hypothesis  of  an  earlier  play,  not  Shake- 
speare's, there  may  have  been  some  clearing 
away,  as  well  as  developing  and  deepening, 
of  the  play  as  it  was  first  acted  by  the  King's 
Servants.  I  can  imagine  the  deeper  intention 
coming  gradually  into  his  own  work,  as  he 
went  over  it,  with  some  inattentive  impatience 
towards  those  parts  which  had  still  to  carry 
the  original  meaning,  the  main  weight  of  the 
story.  Throughout  there  are  ragged  ends  of 
action,  with  one  discrepancy  in  fact  between 
the  second  and  the  third  scene  of  Act  I.,  and 
a  transposition,  by  the  printers  of  the  First 
Folio,  of  a  rhyming  tag  from  the  end  of 
the  play  to  the  end  of  the  third  scene  of  the 
last  act,  as  if  that  had  once  been  the  end  of 
the  play.  Lines  are  left  in  careless  lengths, 
now  too  short  and  now  too  long,  as  if  parts  had 
been  revised  without  regard  to  their  context. 


150    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

The  difference  between  the  formal  rhymed 
couplets  of  some  scenes  and  the  free  and 
weighty  blank  verse  of  others  is  the  difference 
between  one  period  and  another  of  Shake- 
speare's technique.  Some  of  the  speeches, 
written  in  the  later  style,  are  the  longest  in 
Shakespeare. 

Troilus  and  Cressida  is  a  kind  of  Don 
Quixote,  in  which  it  is  even  more  difficult 
to  disentangle  the  burlesque  from  the  serious 
element.  The  first  aim  of  Cervantes  was  to 
ridicule  the  folly  of  courtly  romances,  to 
"laugh  Spam's  chivalry  away,"  so  far  as 
the  extravagant  facts  of  chivalry  were  con- 
cerned. But  on  the  way  he  laughed  at  a 
thousand  other  things  which  are  now  of  more 
interest  to  the  world,  and  he  made  his  scare- 
crow hero  one  of  the  most  sympathetic  victims 
of  romance;  the  eternal  idealist,  lovable  and 
ridiculous  and  lamentable  and  heroic,  and  the 
sport  of  a  rough  world  which  is,  after  all, 
always  his  servant.  Shakespeare  takes  the 
story  of  the  fall  of  Troy,  the  commonplace 
of  poets  and  romance-writers,  a  legend  almost 
as  sacred  as  the  Bible,  and  he  makes  it,  in 
his  parody  of  it,  a  parable  of  the  world. 


TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  151 

Troilus  and  Cressida  is  an  assaying  of 
accepted  values,  and  Shakespeare  takes  the 
two  prime  heroisms,  love  and  glory  (the  two 
fights  for  honour),  and  shows  them  to  us 
through  the  eyes  of  Thersites:  "Still  wars  and 
lechery!  nothing  else  holds  fashion."  In  this 
picture  we  see  how  like  we  are  at  our  highest 
to  the  beasts  that  perish.  Here  is  Troy,  the 
city  of  the  world's  desire;  Helen,  the  desire 
of  the  world;  the  mighty  Agamemnon;  the 
wise  Ulysses;  the  hero  of  heroes,  Achilles; 
Ajax,  the  bravest  of  men;  Hector,  Cassandra, 
Andromache;  and  only  Hector  has  any  plain 
nobility,  and  is  not  either  a  coward,  a  bully, 
or  a  fool.  It  is  a  Greek  who  counts  that 
"for  every  false  drop"  in  the  veins  of  Helen 
"a  Grecian's  life  hath  sunk";  even  Hector 
doubts  the  wisdom  of  keeping  Helen,  though 
he  would  still  keep  up  the  fight,  not  for  Helen's 
sake,  but  for  the  honour  of  the  cause.  None 
of  these  "heroes"  have  any  heroical  impulses; 
they  fight  for  their  own  heads,  for  spite, 
because  others  are  fighting.  We  see  the 
petty  inside  of  war,  as,  in  Cressida  and  in 
Helen,  we  see  the  shallow  and  troubled 
depths  of  woman.  In  this  morbid,  almost 


152    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

Swiftian,  consciousness  of  the  dung  in  which 
roses  are  rooted,  Shakespeare  drags  Thersites 
out  of  his  sewer  and  bids  us  listen  to  him. 
Thersites  is  his  chorus,  his  mouthpiece,  his 
pet  scavenger. 

Beside  Thersites  is  the  other  sign-post  to 
the  knowledge  of  evil,  Pandarus.  Pandarus 
is  love's  broker  as  Thersites  is  the  broker  of 
glory.  Each  has  a  different  platform  from 
which  to  rail  at  the  world;  but  Pandarus  is  a 
foul  and  feeble  part  of  that  at  which  Thersites 
rails.  Thersites  is  the  Falstaff  of  a  world 
that  tastes  bitter.  He  has  infinite  curiosity; 
he  runs  recklessly  into  danger,  in  order  that 
he  may  spy  out  the  mean  secrets  on  which 
his  mind  battens.  He  is  beaten,  and  rails  on, 
saying,  "I  serve  not  thee,"  to  the  stronger 
bully  against  whom  he  has  only  the  weapon 
of  his  tongue.  He  shares  with  Ulysses  the  only 
brains  in  two  armies  of  fighters,  who  know  not 
why  they  are  fighting,  and  who  are  drawn  into 
action  or  out  of  it  for  straws;  and  he  sees 
farther  than  Ulysses,  because  he  does  not 
see  with  a  purpose.  He  is  Irish  in  the  inven- 
tive imagination  of  his  abuse;  he  has  the  richest 
vocabulary  of  any  rogue  in  Shakespeare.  His 


TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  153 

speech  is  a  foul  glory,  a  glory  fouled.  "So 
much  and  such  savo'ured  salt  of  wit"  is  in  his 
words  that  the  foulness  is  forgotten  in  the 
fierce  and  ever-armed  intelligence  which,  help- 
less to  overthrow,  pricks  mortally  all  this 
"valiant  ignorance." 

For  the  most  part,  in  his  plays,  Shake- 
speare gives  us  an  underplot  which  is  a  kind  of 
echo  or  reflection  of  the  main  story;  and  here, 
as  a  luminous  background  for  Cressida,  be- 
tween Troilus  and  Diomedes,  we  see  Helen, 
between  Menelaus  and  Paris.  For  a  moment, 
as  the  great  lines  of  Marlowe  come  into  his 
mind,  Shakespeare  speaks  of  Helen,  through 
the  mouth  of  Troilus,  with  reverence : 

Is  she  worth  keeping?  why,  she  is  a  pearl, 

Whose  price  hath  launched  above  a  thousand  ships, 

And  turned  crowned  kings  to  merchants! 

The  wonderful  scene  between  Paris  and  Helen 
(Act  III.,  Scene  1)  gives,  with  its  touch  of 
luxurious,  almost  lascivious  satire,  the  Renais- 
sance picture  of  the  two  most  famous  lovers 
of  the  world.  There  is  a  refrain  of  "love, 
love,  love,"  grossly,  luxuriously,  mockingly. 
"Let  thy  song  be  love,"  murmurs  Helen: 


154    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

"this  love  will  undo  us  all.  0  Cupid,  Cupid, 
Cupid!"  And  Paris  echoes:  "Aye,  good 
now,  love,  love,  nothing  but  love."  Helen 
speaks  as  grossly  as  Cressida;  Paris  twice 
calls  her  "Nell."  In  the  dispraise  of  Helen, 
from  the  mouth  of  Diomedes  (Act  IV.,  Scene 
1),  Shakespeare  forces  the  note,  making  even 
those  who  had  least  cause  rail  on  the  woman 
with  all  the  contempt  of  hate.  Yet  the  noblest 
praise  that  has  ever  been  said  of  Helen  comes 
to  her  in  this  pity  from  the  undistinguished 
mouth  of  a  punning  servant,  who  calls  her 
"the  mortal  Venus,  the  heart-blood  of  beauty, 
love's  invisible  soul."  Later  on,  in  Cleopatra, 
Shakespeare  is  to  give  us  the  supreme  en- 
chantress, taking  her  wholly  from  her  own 
point  of  view,  or  at  least  with  sympathetic 
impartiality.  Here  he  seems  to  ask  with 
Pandarus,  "Is  love  a  generation  of  vipers?" 
His  cruelty  with  Helen  is  but  a  part  of  his 
protest,  his  criticism,  his  valuation  of  love. 
Love  in  this  cloying  scene  between  Paris  and 
Helen  appears  before  us  sickly,  a  thing  of 
effeminate  horror,  which  can  be  escaped  only 
by  turning  it  into  laughter. 

Cressida  is  a  symbol  of  Helen,  the  feminine 


TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  153 

animal  shown  us  in  detail.  Ulysses  sums  her 
up  in  a  few  significant  lines  which  say  every- 
thing: 

Fie,  fie  upon  her! 

There's  language  in  her  eye,  her  cheek,  her  lip, 
Nay,  her  foot  speaks;  her  wanton  spirits  look  out 
At  every  joint  and  motive  of  her  body. 
O,  these  encounterers,  so  glib  of  tongue, 
That  give  accosting  welcome  ere  it  comes, 
And  wide  unclasp  the  tables  of  their  thoughts 
To  every  ticklish  reader!  set  them  down 
For  sluttish  spoils  of  opportunity, 
And  daughters  of  the  game. 

She  is  mere  sex,  the  Manon  Lescaut  of 
her  period,  so  incapable  of  fidelity,  so  anxious 
to  get  her  pleasure  by  pleasing,  a  coquette, 
not  a  criminal,  petty  with  the  instincts  of  the 
cat,  sly  and  provident,  apologetic  to  the  end. 
From  the  first  she  plays  at  virtue,  and  is 
taken  for  chaste  when  she  is  but  chary  of  her- 
self for  a  purpose. 

In  Troilus  we  get  the  sensual  man,  brave, 
passionate,  and  constant,  suffering  from  pas- 
sion as  from  a  disease.  His  speech  is  often 
mere  extravagance;  but  once,  when  he  waits 
for  Cressida  in  the  orchard,  he  speaks  perhaps 
the  most  sensitive  lines  in  Shakespeare: 


156    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

I  am  giddy:  expectation  whirls  me  round. 

The  imaginary  relish  is  so  sweet 

That  it  enchants  my  sense:  what  will  it  be 

When  that  the  watery  palate  tastes  indeed 

Love's  thrice-repured  nectar!  death,  I  fear  me, 

Swooning  destruction,  or  some  joy  too  fine, 

Too  subtle-potent,  tuned  too  sharp  in  sweetness, 

For  the  capacity  of  my  ruder  powers : 

I  fear  it  much,  and  I  do  fear  besides 

That  I  shall  lose  distinction  in  my  joys, 

As  doth  a  battle,  when  they  charge  on  heaps 

The  enemy  flying. 

In  those  lines  we  get  what  is  most  precise  and 
exquisite  in  the  play,  free,  for  the  moment, 
of  all  irony;  a  rendering  of  sensation  sharpened 
to  the  vanishing-point;  the  sensation  which 
does  not  know  itself  for  pain  or  pleasure,  so 
inexplicably  is  it  intermingled  in  the  delights 
of  opposites.  Much  of  what  seems  to  us 
most  characteristically  modern  in  modern 
literature,  together  with  almost  the  whole  aim 
of  modern  music,  is  here  anticipated.  It  is 
Shakespeare  showing  us,  in  a  flash,  that  he 
may  be  quite  fair,  all  of  ecstasy  that  does  really 
exist  in  the  thing  he  holds  up  to  our  mockery. 
Is  it  with  a  kind  of  cruelty  that  Shake- 
speare is  so  patient  with  Cressida,  setting 
her  to  unfold  herself  before  us,  little  by 


TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  157 

little,  in  scene  after  scene  nicely  calculated 
for  her  exposure?  To  be  so  feminine  and  so 
vile,  so  much  a  woman,  with  all  the  woman's 
pretty  tricks,  and  so  old  in  craft,  an  angler 
for  hearts;  there  is  a  dreadful  and  a  merciless 
knowledge  in  the  picture.  In  the  scene  in 
the  court  of  Pandarus  (Act  IV.,  Scene  2), 
Cressida  has  all  the  lightness  and  unwhole- 
some charm  of  actual,  attractive  vulgarity; 
in  the  scene  in  the  Grecian  Camp  (Act  V., 
Scene  2),  where  we  hear  her  words  through  a 
series  of  listeners — Troilus,  Ulysses,  and  Ther- 
sites,  the  lover,  the  observer,  and  the  mocker — 
she  is  vulgar  nature  naked  to  the  roots  and  no 
longer  deceptive.  Shakespeare  is  using  her 
to  point  his  moral  against  her  sex;  he  gloats 
over  her,  not  to  spare  her. 

People  have  complained  because  Troilus 
and  Cressida  can  be  set  down  under  no  general 
title;  because,  as  the  printers  of  the  First 
Folio  discovered  to  their  confusion,  it  is  neither 
tragedy,  comedy,  nor  history,  but  something 
of  each  and  something  else  besides.  It  is 
made  out  of  history,  with  an  infinite  deal  of 
tragedy  in  the  matter  of  it,  and  its  upshot  is 
purely  comic.  Here,  more  than  anywhere 


158    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

else  in  Shakespeare,  we  get  the  comedy  of 
pure  mind,  with  its  detachment  from  life, 
to  which  it  applies  an  abstract  criticism. 
Tragedy  comes  about  from  an  abandonment 
to  the  emotions,  and  the  tragic  attitude  is  one 
of  sympathy  with  this  absorption  hi  the  mo- 
ment, this  child's  way  of  taking  things  seri- 
ously, of  crying  over  every  scratch.  To  the 
pure  reason  emotion  is  something  petty, 
ridiculous,  or  useless,  and  the  conflicts  of 
humanity  no  more  than  the  struggles  of  ants 
on  an  ant-hill.  To  Thersites's  "critique  of 
pure  reason"  all  the  heroisms  of  the  world 
reduce  themselves  to  his  fundamental  thesis: 
"all  incontinent  varlets."  Shakespeare  uses 
not  only  Thersites  but  Pandarus  to  speak 
through,  as  he  escapes  the  sting  of  love  by 
making  a  laughing-stock  of  the  passion  under 
cover  of  Pandarus' s  trade,  and  holds  up  war  to 
contempt,  through  the  license  of  the  "fool," 
mimic,  and  "privileged  man"  of  these  "beef- 
witted  lords"  who  are  playing  at  soldiers. 

To  write  drama  from  a  point  of  view  so 
aloof  is  to  lose  most  of  the  material  of  drama 
and  all  dramatic  appeal.  It  is  to  make  the 
puppets  cry  out:  See  what  puppets  we  are! 


TROILUS  AND  CRESSIDA  159 

When  pure  mind  rules,  manoeuvres,  and  judges 
the  passions,  we  lose  as  well  as  gain.  We 
lose  the  satisfaction  of  tragedy,  the  classic 
"pity  and  terror,"  the  luxury  of  tears.  We 
no  longer  see  a  complete  thing  cut  boldly 
off  from  nature  and  shown  to  us  labelled. 
We  are  condemned  to  be  on  the  watch,  to 
weigh,  balance,  and  decide.  We  must  appre- 
hend wholly  by  the  intelligence,  never  by  the 
feelings. 

We  gain,  certainly,  in  knowledge,  width 
of  view,  hardihood.  We  read  life,  in  this 
bewildering  comment  on  it,  not  through  the 
eyes  of  Shakespeare's  final  wisdom,  but  as 
Shakespeare,  at  one  period,  read  life.  It  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  Troilus  and  Cressida 
does  not  belong  to  the  same  period  as  Timon 
of  Athens,  and  that,  hi  these  two  illuminating 
and  bitter  plays,  in  which  the  glories  of  the 
world  are  reviled  in  so  different  a  temper,  to 
so  similar  a  purpose,  Shakespeare  is  not 
giving  expression  to  an  attitude  of  mind 
which  was  his  in  an  interval  of  his  passage  from 
serenity  to  serenity.  His  young  comedies 
have,  first,  the  trivial  gaiety  of  mere  youth 
before  the  spectacle  of  the  world;  then  a 


160    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

woodland  breath  and  sweetness,  all  the  com- 
fort of  nature,  not  tried  past  forbearance. 
Tragedy  comes  into  the  scheme  of  things  simply 
as  a  disturbance  natural  to  life  at  its  height, 
the  shadow  pursuing  love,  beauty,  all  the 
graces  of  the  world.  The  shadow  darkens, 
the  colours  of  life  are  washed  one  by  one  out 
of  it,  in  a  mere  inexplicable  spoiling  of  the 
delicate  fabric.  At  the  last  we  get  the  ulti- 
mate calm  of  The  Tempest,  which  is  the  calm 
of  one  who  has  suffered  shipwreck  and  escaped. 
Troilus  and  Cressida  is  laughter  in  the  midst 
of  the  storm;  it  has  all  the  wisdom  that  lies 
in  the  deepest  irony.  The  wisdom  of  Shake- 
speare, as  we  sum  it  up  from  a  contemplation 
of  his  whole  work,  is  neither  optimism  nor 
pessimism,  but  includes  both.  It  is  part  of 
Shakespeare's  vital  immensity  that  he  can 
give  us  in  a  single  play,  as  in  Troilus  and  Cres- 
sida, a  complete  philosophy,  which  will  prove 
sufficient  for  the  use  and  fame  of  more  than 
one  great  writer  who  is  to  come  after  him; 
and  can  then  go  on  his  way,  creating  new 
aspects  from  which  to  see  life,  as  nature  itself 
leads  the  way  for  him. 
1907. 


XI.    PHILIP  MASSINGER 

PHILIP  MASSINGER  was  born  at  Salisbury, 
and  was  baptized  at  St.  Thomas's  on  the 
24th  November,  1583;  he  died  at  London, 
in  his  house  on  the  Bankside,  and  was  buried 
in  St.  Saviour's  on  the  18th  March,  1638. 
His  father,  Arthur  Massinger,  was  a  retainer 
of  the  Herbert  family,  in  whose  service,  we 
learn  from  the  dedication  of  The  Bondman, 
he  "happily  spent  many  years,  and  died  a 
servant  to  it."  The  exact  significance  of  the 
word  ''servant"  used  many  times  in  reference 
to  Arthur  Massinger's  position,  is  not  quite 
clear;  it  certainly  represents  an  honorable 
form  of  service.  Evidence  of  the  respect  in 
which  the  elder  Massinger  was  held  may  be 
found  in  the  letters  and  despatches  of  Henry, 
Earl  of  Pembroke.  One  of  these,  addressed 
to  Lord  Burghley,  recommends  him  for  the 
reversion  of  the  office  of  Examiner  in  the  Court 
of  the  Marches  of  Wales;  another  refers  to 
him  as  negotiator  in  a  treaty  of  marriage  be- 
161 


162    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

tween  the  Pembroke  and  Burghley  families; 
yet  another  describes  him  as  the  bearer  of 
letters  from  Pembroke  to  the  Queen.  It  has 
been  conjectured  that  Philip  Massinger  may 
himself  have  been  page  to  the  Countess  of 
Pembroke  at  Wilton,  and  imaginative  his- 
torians are  pleased  to  fancy  Sir  Philip  Sidney 
as  his  possible  godfather.  Life  at  the  most 
cultured  and  refined  house  in  England,  if  such 
favour  was  indeed  granted  him,  would  acquaint 
the  future  painter  of  courtly  manners  with  the 
minutest  details  of  his  subject;  and  in  some 
of  the  men  and  women  who  met  at  Wilton  he 
would  see  the  ideal  of  manly  chivalry,  and  a 
higher  than  the  ideal  of  womanly  virtue,  to 
which  his  writings  were  to  bear  witness. 

The  first  authentic  account  of  Massinger, 
after  the  register  of  his  baptism,  is  the  entry 
of  "Philippus  Massinger,  Sarisburiensis,  gene- 
rosi  filius,  nat.  an.  18"  (Philip  Massinger,  of 
Salisbury,  the  son  of  a  gentleman,  aged  18) 
as  a  commoner  of  St.  Alban's  Hall,  Oxford, 
May  14th,  1602.  Wood  tells  us  that  "he 
gave  his  mind  more  to  poetry  and  romances 
for  about  four  years  or  more,  than  to  logic 
and  philosophy,  which  he  ought  to  have 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  163 

done,  as  he  was  patronized  to  that  end"  by 
the  Earl  of  Pembroke.    Langbaine,   on  the 
other  hand,  asserts  that  he  closely  pursued  his 
studies  for  three  or  four  years,  and  that  he  was 
supported  solely  by  his  father.     It  is  difficult 
for  a  reader  of  Massinger  to  help  believing  that 
logic  and  philosophy  alternated  evenly  enough 
with  poetry  and  romances.     Massinger's  Latin, 
by  no  means  despicable,  though  it  has  a  tend- 
ency to  concentrate  itself  in  the  very  service- 
able phrase  Nil  ultra,  scarcely  suggests  the 
temper  of  a  scholar;  but  that  passionate  fond- 
ness for  argument,  and  intense  devotion  to 
principles  in  the  abstract,  visible  in  every  page 
of  his  works,  would  consort  very  ill  with  the 
character  of  the  heedless  loiterer  on  learning 
indicated  to  us  by  Wood.    In  1606  he  quitted 
the  University  abruptly,  and  without  taking 
a  degree.    About  the  same  time  occurred  (it 
is  believed)  the  death  of  his  father;  it  has  been 
suggested,  on  the  one  hand,  that  he  was  by  this 
circumstance  deprived  of  his  support  (suppos- 
ing it  to  have  been  provided  by  his  father); 
on  the  other,  somewhat  fancifully,  that  "his 
father's  death  bereft  him  of  the  heart  and  hope 
of  his  academical  studies."    But  if  we  believe 


164    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

Wood's  account,  his  exhibition  was  from  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke.  The  old  Earl  Henry, 
Arthur  Massinger's  patron,  had  died  on  Jan- 
uary 19,  1601.  Philip  Massinger,  therefore, 
who  went  to  Oxford  more  than  a  year  after 
Earl  Henry's  death,  would  owe  his  support 
to  William  (the  supposed  "Mr.  W.  H."  of 
Shakespeare's  Sonnets),  eldest  son  and  suc- 
cessor of  the  old  earl.1  Why  should  this 
support  be  suddenly  and  finally  withdrawn? 
Earl  William,  we  are  told  by  Clarendon,  was 
"the  most  universally  beloved  and  esteemed 
of  any  man  of  that  age  ...  of  a  pleasant  and 
facetious  humour,  and  a  disposition  generous 
and  munificent  .  .  .  ready  to  promote  the 
pretences  of  the  worthy."  Why  then  should 
he  have  ceased  to  promote  the  "pretences" 
of  such  a  man  as  Philip  Massinger,  the  son 
of  one  of  his  father's  most  trusted  retainers? 
It  is  conjectured  by  Gifford  that  Massinger, 
"during  his  residence  in  the  University,  had 
exchanged  the  religion  of  his  father  for  one  at 
that  time  the  object  of  terror,  persecution, 

1  The  Countess  of  Pembroke,  though  living  at  the  time, 
had  been  left  by  her  husband  so  badly  provided  for,  that 
any  assistance  from  her  would  be  quite  out  of  the  question. 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  165 

and  hatred,"  and  had,  by  becoming  a  Roman 
Catholic,  alienated  the  sympathies  of  the 
Earl  of  Pembroke,  who  is  known  to  have  pro- 
fessed a  zealous  and  patriotic  Protestantism. 
"He  was  a  great  lover  of  his  country,"  says 
Clarendon,  "and  of  the  religion  and  justice 
which  he  believed  could  only  support  it;  and 
his  friendships  were  only  with  men  of  these 
principles.1'  In  support  of  his  hypothesis, 
Gifford  points  particularly  to  The  Virgin 
Martyr,  The  Renegado,  and  The  Maid  of 
Honour.  I  cannot  think  the  evidence  of  these 
plays  conclusive;  but,  such  as  it  is,  it  certainly 
goes  a  long  way  in  favour  of  the  supposition. 
Besides  the  ecclesiastical  legends,  the  curious 
conversions  of  The  Virgin  Martyr,  the  implied 
belief  in  baptismal  regeneration,  and  the 
wonder-working  Jesuit  of  The  Renegado,  Mas- 
singer's  view  of  life  and  tone  of  moralizing 
not  in  these  plays  alone,  are  far  removed  from 
the  Puritan  standpoint,  while  distinctly  and 
indeed  assertively  religious.  The  Roman 
Catholic  religion  would  naturally  have  con- 
siderable attraction  for  a  man  of  Massinger's 
temperament;  and  he  would  certainly  have 
every  opportunity  of  association  with  it  in  a 


166    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

University  of  such  Catholic  and  conservative 
principles  as  Oxford. 

After  leaving  the  University  in  1606,  Mas- 
singer  appears  to  have  gone  to  London, 
where,  according  to  Antony  Wood,  "  being 
sufficiently  famed  for  several  specimens  of 
wit,  he  betook  himself  to  writing  plays." 
The  English  drama  was  now  at  its  height; 
Shakespeare  was  producing  his  latest  and 
greatest  tragic  masterpieces;  Jonson,  Chap- 
man, Dekker,  Middleton,  and  perhaps  Mars- 
ton,  were  at  their  best;  Webster  was  nearing 
his  artistic  maturity,  and  Tourneur  flaming  out 
in  his  sudden  phase  of  short-lived  brilliance; 
Beaumont  and  Fletcher  were  about  to  begin 
their  career.  When  and  how  Massinger  began 
to  write  we  are  not  aware:  probably,  like 
most  playwrights  of  the  time,  he  began  with 
adaptation.  The  first  mention  of  his  name 
as  a  dramatist  occurs  in  the  year  1621,  when 
his  comedy  The  Woman's  Plot  (the  play  known 
to  us  under  the  name  of  A  Very  Woman)  was 
performed  at  Court.  During  this  period  of 
fifteen  years  he  probably  produced  seven  plays, 
now  lost  to  us  through  Mr.  Warburton's 
insatiable  cook;1  several  others  in  collabora- 

|    *  The  plays  in  Warburton's  possession,  burnt  leaf  by  leaf 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  167 

tion  with  Fletcher;1  and  The  Virgin  Martyr, 
The  Fatal  Dowry,  The  Unnatural  Combat,  and 
The  Duke  of  Milan.  It  may  be  doubted 
whether  Massinger  was  ever  sufficiently  popu- 
lar to  make  a  very  good  living  out  of  his  pro- 
fession of  playwright.  We  have  evidence, 
in  the  pitiful  document  discovered  by  Malone 
in  the  archives  of  Dulwich  College,  that  in 
the  early  part  of  his  career  he  was  reduced  to 
beg  urgently  for  an  immediate  loan  of  £5. 
The  document  is  undated;  but  it  is  assigned 
by  Mr.  Collier  to  1624  or  the  previous  year. 

After  this  melancholy  flash  of  light  into  the 
darkness  of  a  somewhat  shadowy  existence,  we 
learn  nothing  more  of  Massinger's  personal 
history  up  to  the  time  of  his  death,  with  the 
exception  of  the  dates  of  the  licensing  of  his 
plays,  a  few  allusions  to  them,  and  an  infer- 
by  his  cook  as  covers  for  pie-crust,  were  the  following: 
Minerva's  Sacrifice,  or,  the  Forced  Lady  (tragedy);  The 
Noble  Choice,  or,  The  Orator  (comedy);  The  Wandering 
Lovers,  or,  The  Painter  (comedy,  by  Massinger  and 
Fletcher);  Philenzo  and  Hippolita  (tragi-comedy,  altered 
by  Massinger);  Antonio  and  Vallia  (comedy,  altered  by 
Massinger) ;  The  Tyrant  (tragedy) ;  and  Fast  and  Welcome 
(comedy). 

1  The  plays  written  by  Massinger  and  Fletcher  together 
(mostly  near  about  this  period)  are  probably  not  less  than 
thirteen  or  fourteen. 


168    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

ence  or  two  which  may  be  drawn  from  their 
dedications.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that 
Henrietta  Maria  paid  Massinger  the  unusual 
compliment  of  attending  the  performance  of 
his  lost  tragedy  Oleander  (produced  May  7th, 
1634);  and  that  another  play  now  lost,  The 
King  and  the  Subject,  having  been  referred 
by  the  Master  of  the  Revels  to  the  decision  of 
Charles,  the  king  gave  judgment  in  its  favour, 
contenting  himself  with  striking  out  a  single 
passage  touching  too  closely  on  the  burning 
question  of  Ship-Money,  with  the  words, 
"This  is  too  insolent,  and  to  be  changed." 

On  the  morning  of  the  17th  of  March,  1638, 
Massinger,  who  had  gone  to  bed  on  the  pre- 
vious night  in  apparent  health,  was  found 
dead  in  his  house  on  the  Bankside.  He  was 
buried  in  St.  Saviour's,  South wark;  the  entry 
of  his  interment  reads:  "1638.  March  18th. 
Philip  Massinger,  stranger,  in  the  church 
...  2  li."  The  word  "stranger,"  pathetic 
as  it  now  sounds,  meant  nothing  more  than 
non-parishioner;  and  it  has  been  supposed  that 
this  fact  accounts  for  the  unusual  amount  of 
the  charge,  £2,  or  double  that  entered  twelve 
years  earlier  in  the  register  of  the  same  church 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  169 

for  "John  Fletcher,  a  poet."  It  is  said  by 
Sir  Aston  Cockayne,  in  his  "Epitaph  on 
Mr.  John  Fletcher  and  Mr  Philip  Massinger," 
that  Massinger  and  Fletcher,  friends  and  com- 
rades in  life,  were  buried  in  the  same  grave. 

When  Massinger  came  to  London,  the 
English  drama,  as  I  have  said,  was  at  its 
height.  But  before  he  had  begun  any  dramatic 
work  of  importance  the  turning-point  had  been 
reached,  and  the  period  of  descent  or  degen- 
eration begun.  Elizabethan  had  given  place 
to  Stuart  England,  and  with  the  dynasty  the 
whole  spirit  of  the  nation  was  changing. 
Fletcher  and  Massinger  together  represent 
this  period :  Fletcher  by  painting  with  dashing 
brilliance  the  light,  bright,  showy,  super- 
ficial aristocratic  life  of  wild  and  graceful 
wantonness;  Massinger  by  painting  with  a 
graver  and  a  firmer  brush,  in  darker  colours 
and  more  considered  outlines,  the  shadier 
side  of  the  same  impressive  and  unsatisfactory 
existence.  The  indications  of  lessening  vital- 
ity and  strength,  of  departing  simplicity,  of 
growing  extravagance  and  affectation,  which 
mark  the  period  of  transition,  reappear  in 
the  drama  of  Massinger,  as  in  that  of  Shirley, 


170    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

and  sever  it,  by  a  wide  and  visible  gulf,  from 
the  drama  which  we  properly  name  Eliza- 
bethan. Massinger  is  the  late  twilight  of  the 
long  and  splendid  day  of  which  Marlowe  was 
the  dawn. 

The  characteristics  of  any  poet's  genius 
are  seen  clearly  in  his  versification.  Massin- 
ger's verse  is  facile,  vigorous,  grave,  in  the 
main  correct;  but  without  delicacy  or  rarity, 
without  splendour  or  strength  of  melody; 
the  verse  of  a  man  who  can  write  easily,  and 
who  is  not  always  too  careful  to  remember 
that  he  is  writing  poetry.  Owing,  no  doubt, 
partly  to  the  facility  with  which  he  wrote, 
Massinger  often  has  imperfectly  accentuated 
lines,  such  as: 

They  did  expect  to  be  chain'd  to  the  oar. 

Coleridge  has  remarked  on  the  very  slight 
degree  in  which  Massinger's  verse  is  dis- 
tinguished from  prose;  and  no  one  can  read 
a  page  of  any  of  his  plays  without  being  struck 
by  it.  It  is  not  merely  that  a  large  proportion 
of  the  lines  run  on  and  overlap  their  neigh- 
bours; this  is  only  the  visible  sign  of  a  radical 
peculiarity.  The  pitch  of  Massinger's  verse 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  171 

is  somewhat  lower  than  the  proper  pitch  of 
poetry;  somewhat  too  near  the  common  pitch 
of  prose.  Shakespeare,  indeed,  hi  his  latest 
period,  extended  the  rhythm  of  verse  to  its 
loosest  and  freest  limits;  but  not  merely 
did  he  never  pass  beyond  the  invisible  and 
immistakeable  boundary,  he  retained  the  true 
intonation  of  poetry  as  completely  as  in  his 
straitest  periods  of  metrical  restraint. 

Massinger  set  himself  to  follow  in  the  steps 
of  Shakespeare,  and  he  succeeded  in  catching 
with  admirable  skill  much  of  the  easy  flow  and 
conversational  facility  at  which  he  aimed. 
"His  English  style,"  says  Lamb,  "is  the  purest 
and  most  free  from  violent  metaphors  and 
harsh  constructions,  of  any  of  the  dramatists 
who  were  his  contemporaries. ' '  But  this ' '  pure 
and  free"  style  obtains  its  freedom  and  purity 
at  a  heavy  cost;  or  let  us  say  rather,  the  style 
possesses  a  certain  degree  of  these  two  quali- 
ties because  of  the  absence  of  certain  others. 
Shakespeare's  freest  verse  is  the  fullest  of 
episodical  beauties  and  of  magical  lines.  But 
it  is  a  singular  thing,  especially  singular  hi  a 
writer  distinguished  not  only  by  fluency  but  by 
dignity  and  true  eloquence,  that  in  the  whole 


172    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

of  Massinger's  extant  works  there  are  scarcely 
a  dozen  lines  of  intrinsic  and  separable  beauty. 
It  would  be  useless  to  look  in  the  Massinger 
part  of  The  Virgin  Martyr  for  any  such  lines 
as  these  of  Dekker: 

I  could  weary  stars, 

And  force  the  wakeful  moon  to  lose  her  eyes, 

By  my  late  watching. 

It  would  be  equally  useless  to  search  from  end 
to  end  of  his  plays.  Easy  flowing  lines,  vigor- 
ous lines,  eloquent  and  persuasive  lines,  we 
could  find  in  plenty;  but  nowhere  a  line  in 
which  colour  melts  into  music,  and  both  be- 
come magical.  Not  quite  so  difficult,  but  still 
very  hard  indeed,  would  it  be  to  find  any  single 
lines  of  that  rare  and  weighty  sort  which  may 
be  said  to  resemble  the  jar  in  the  Arabian 
Nights  into  which  Solomon  had  packed  the 
genie.  Had  Massinger  wished  to  represent 
Vittoria  Accoramboni  before  her  judges,  he 
would  have  written  for  her  a  thoroughly  elo- 
quent, admirable,  and  telling  oration;  but  he 
could  never  have  wrought  her  speech  into  that 
dagger  with  which  Webster  drives  home  the 
sharpness  of  her  imperial  scorn.  That  one 
line  of  infinite  meaning: 

Cover  her  face;  mine  eyes  dazzle;  she  died  young; 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  173 

spoken  by  Ferdinand  in  The  Duchess  of  Malfi 
over  the  corpse  of  his  murdered  sister,  has  no 
parallel  in  Massinger,  who  would  probably 
have  begun  a  long  and  elaborate  piece  of 
rhetoric  with 

Stay,  I  feel 
A  sudden  alteration 

If  we  carry  these  considerations  further,  we 
shall  see  how  fully  the  mental  characteristics 
of  Massinger  correspond  with  the  evidences 
of  them  in  his  versification.  The  ease  and 
facility  shown  in  the  handling  of  metre  are 
manifest  equally  in  the  plot  and  conduct  of 
the  plays.  Massinger  thoroughly  understood 
the  art  of  the  playwright.  No  one  perhaps, 
after  Shakespeare,  proved  himself  so  constantly 
capable  of  constructing  an  orderly  play  and 
working  it  steadily  out.  His  openings  are  as 
a  rule  admirable;  thoroughly  effective,  ex- 
planatory and  preparatory.  How  well,  for 
instance,  the  first  scene  of  The  Duke  of  Milan 
prepares  us,  by  a  certain  uneasiness  or  anxiety 
of  its  trembling  pitch  of  happiness,  for  the 
events  which  are  to  follow!  It  is  not  always 
possible  to  say  as  much  for  his  conclusions. 
Ingenuity,  certainly,  and  considerable  con- 


174    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

structive  skill,  are  there,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree;  and  in  not  a  few  instances  (as  in  that 
delightful  play  The  Great  Duke  of  Florence,  or 
in  that  powerful  play  Believe  as  You  List) 
the  conclusion  is  altogether  right  and  satis- 
fying. But  in  many  instances  Massinger's 
very  endeavor  to  wind  off  his  play  in  the 
neatest  manner,  without  any  tangles  or  frayed 
edges,  spoils  the  proper  artistic  effect.  His 
persistent  aversion  to  a  tragic  end,  even 
where  a  virtual  tragedy  demands  it;  his  in- 
vincible determination  to  make  things  come 
to  a  fortunate  conclusion,  even  if  the  action 
has  to  be  huddled  up  or  squashed  together  in 
consequence;  in  a  word,  his  concession  to  the 
popular  taste,  no  matter  at  what  cost,  not 
unfrequently  distorts  the  conclusion  of  plays 
up  to  this  point  well  conducted. 

Massinger's  treatment  of  character  follows 
in  some  respects,  while  it  seems  in  others  to 
contradict,  his  treatment  of  versification  and 
of  construction.  Where  Massinger  most  con- 
clusively fails  is  in  a  right  understanding  and  a 
right  representation  of  human  nature;  in  the 
power  to  conceive  passion  and  bring  its  speech 
and  action  vividly  and  accurately  before  us. 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  175 

His  theory  of  human  nature  is  apparently 
that  of  the  puppet-player:  he  is  aware  of 
violent  but  not  of  consistent  action,  of  change 
but  not  of  development.  No  dramatist  talks 
so  much  of  virtue  and  vice,  but  he  has  no  con- 
ception of  either  except  in  the  abstract;  and 
he  finds  it  not  in  the  least  surprising  that  a 
virtuous  woman  should  suddenly  cry  out: 

Chastity, 
Thou  only  art  a  name,  and  I  renounce  thee! 

or  that  a  fanatical  Mohammedan  should 
embrace  Christianity  on  being  told  that  the 
Prophet  was  a  juggler,  and  taught  birds  to 
feed  in  his  ear.  His  motto  might  be: 

We  are  all  the  balls  of  time,  tossed  to  and  fro; 

for  his  conception  of  life  is  that  of  a  game  of 
wild  and  inconsequent  haphazard.  It  is  true 
that  he  rewards  his  good  people  and  punishes 
the  bad  with  the  most  scrupulous  care;  but 
the  good  or  bad  person  at  the  end  of  a  play 
is  not  always  the  good  or  bad  person  of  the 
beginning.  Massinger's  outlook  is  by  no 
means  vague  or  sceptical  on  religion1  or  on 

1  The  Renegado  is  a  treatise  on  Christian  evidence,  The 
Virgin  Martyr  a  chronicle  of  Christian  martyrdom,  The 
Maid  of  Honour  concludes  with  a  taking  of  the  veil. 


176    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

morals;  he  is  moralist  before  all  things,  and 
the  copy-book  tags  neatly  pinned  on  to  the 
conclusion  of  each  play  are  only  a  somewhat 
clumsy  exhibition  of  a  real  conviction  and  con- 
scientiousness. But  his  morality  is  nerveless, 
and  aimless  in  its  general  effect ;  or  it  translates 
itself,  oddly  enough,  into  a  co-partner  of  con- 
fusion, a  disturbing  and  distracting  element 
of  mischief. 

Notwithstanding  all  we  may  say  of  Mas- 
singer's  facility,  it  is  evident  that  we  have  in 
him  no  mere  improvisator,  or  contentedly  hasty 
and  superficial  person.  He  was  an  earnest 
thinker,  a  thoughtful  politician,  a  careful 
observer  of  the  manners  and  men  of  his  time, 
and,  to  the  extent  of  his  capacity,  an  eager 
student  of  human  nature;  but,  for  all  that, 
his  position  is  that  of  a  foreigner  travelling 
through  a  country  of  whose  language  he 
knows  but  a  few  words  or  sentences.  He 
observes  with  keenness,  he  infers  with  acumen; 
but  when  he  proceeds  to  take  the  last  step, 
the  final  touch  which  transmutes  recorded 
observation  into  vital  fact,  he  finds  (or  we, 
at  least,  find)  that  his  strength  is  exhausted, 
his  limit  reached.  He  observes,  for  instance, 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  177 

that  the  characters  and  motives  of  men 
are  in  general  mixed;  and  especially,  and  in  a 
special  degree,  those  of  men  of  a  certain  class, 
and  in  certain  positions.  But  when  we  look 
at  the  personages  whom  he  presents  before  us 
as  mixed  characters,  we  perceive  that  they 
are  not  so  in  themselves,  but  are  mixed  in  the 
making.  "We  do  not  forbid  an  artist  in 
fiction,"  says  Swinburne  in  speaking  of  Charles 
Reade,  "to  set  before  us  strange  instances  of 
inconsistency  and  eccentricity  in  conduct; 
but  we  do  require  of  the  artist  that  he  should 
make  us  feel  such  aberrations  to  be  as  clearly 
inevitable  as  they  are  confessedly  exceptional." 
Now  this  is  just  what  Massinger  does  not  do: 
it  is  just  here  that  he  comes  short  of  success 
as  a  dramatic  artist.  In  Calderon's  figure,  we 
see  his  men  dancing  to  the  rhythm  of  a  music 
which  we  cannot  hear:  nothing  is  visible  to 
us  but  the  grotesque  contortions  and  fantastic 
motions  of  the  dancer. 

Where  Massinger  fails  is  in  the  power  of 
identifying  himself  with  his  characters,  at 
least  in  their  moments  of  profound  passion  or 
strenuous  action.  At  his  best  (or  let  us 
say,  to  be  scrupulous,  at  almost  his  best)  he 


178    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

succeeds  on  the  one  hand  in  representing  the 
gentler  and  secondary  passions  and  emotions; 
on  the  other,  in  describing  the  action  of  the 
primary  passions  very  accurately  and  admi- 
rably, but,  as  it  were,  in  the  third  person,  and 
from  the  outside.  As  Leslie  Stephen  says 
with  reference  to  a  fine  speech  of  Sir  Giles 
Overreach  in  A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts, 
"Read  'he'  for  'I,'  and  'his'  for  'my,'  and  it 
is  an  admirable  bit  of  denunciation  of  a  char- 
acter probably  intended  as  a  copy  from  real 
life."  His  characters  seldom  quite  speak  out; 
they  have  almost  always  about  them  a  sort 
of  rhetorical  self -consciousness.  The  language 
of  pure  passion  is  unknown  to  them;  they  can 
only  strive  to  counterfeit  its  dialect.  In 
handling  a  situation  of  tragic  passion,  in 
developing  a  character  subject  to  the  shocks 
of  an  antagonistic  Fate,  Massinger  manifests 
a  singular  lack  of  vital  force,  a  singular  failure 
in  the  realizing  imagination.  He  mistakes 
extravagance  for  strength,  eloquence  for  con- 
viction, feverishness  for  vitality.  Take,  for 
instance,  the  jealousy  of  Theodosius  in  The 
Emperor  of  the  East.  His  conduct  and  language 
are  altogether  unreasoning  and  unreasonable, 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  179 

the  extravagances  of  a  weak  and  unballasted 
nature,  depicted  by  one  who  can  only  thus 
conceive  of  strong  passions.  His  sudden  and 
overmastering  jealousy  at  sight  of  the  apple 
given  by  Eudocia  to  Paulinus  is  without 
probability;  and  Eudocia's  lie  when  charged 
with  the  gift  is  without  reason.  It  is  almost 
too  cruel  in  this  connection  to  think  of  Desde- 
mona's  handkerchief;  of  the  admirable  and 
inevitable  logic  of  the  means  by  which  Othello's 
mind  is  not  so  much  imbued  with  suspicion 
as  convinced  with  certainty.  "All  this  pother 
for  an  apple!"  as  some  sensible  person  in 
the  play  observes.  Again,  in  The  Fatal  Dowry, 
compare  for  a  moment  Malefort's  careful 
bombast,  which  leaves  us  cold  and  incredu- 
lous before  an  impossible  and  uninteresting 
monster  of  wickedness,  with  the  biting  and 
flaming  words  of  Francesco  Cenci,  before  which 
we  shudder  as  at  the  fiery  breath  of  the  pit. 
Almost  all  Massinger's  villains,  notwithstand- 
ing the  fearful  language  which  they  are  in  the 
habit  of  employing,  fail  to  convince  us  of  their 
particular  wickedness;  most  of  his  tried  and 
triumphant  heroes  fail  to  convince  us  of  their 
vitality  of  virtue.  Massinger's  conception  of 


180    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

evil  is  surprisingly  naive:  he  is  frightened, 
completely  taken  in,  by  the  big  words  and 
blustering  looks  of  these  bold  and  wicked  men. 
He  paints  them  with  an  inky  brush,  he  tells 
us  how  very  wicked  they  are,  and  he  sets  them 
denouncing  themselves  and  their  wickedness 
with  a  beautiful  tenderness  of  conscience. 
The  blackness  of  evil  and  the  contrasted 
whiteness  of  virtue  are  alike  lost  on  us,  and 
the  good  moral  with  them;  for  we  are  unable 
to  believe  in  the  existence  of  any  such  beings. 
It  is  the  same  with  those  exhibitions  of  tempted 
virtue  of  which  Massinger  is  so  fond.  I  do 
not  allude  now  to  cases  of  actual  martyrdom 
or  persecution,  such  as  those  of  Dorothea  or 
Antiochus;  but  to  situations  of  a  more  com- 
plex nature,  such  as  that  of  Mathias  with 
Honoria,  or  Bertoldo  with  Aurelia,  in  which 
we  are  expected  to  see  the  soul's  conflict 
between  virtue  enthroned  and  vice  assailant. 
The  fault  is  that  of  inadequate  realization  of 
the  true  bearing  of  the  situation;  inadequate 
representation  of  the  conflict  which  is  very 
properly  assumed  to  be  going  on.  Massinger 
is  like  a  man  who  knows  that  the  dial-hand 
of  the  clock  will  describe  a  certain  circle, 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  181 

passing  from  point  to  point  to  significant 
figures;  but  instead  of  winding  up  the  clock, 
and  setting  it  going  of  itself,  he  can  only  move 
round  the  hand  on  the  outside.  To  use 
another  figure,  his  characters  oscillate  rather 
than  advance,  their  conversions  are  without 
saving  effect  on  their  souls,  their  falls  have  no 
damnation.  They  are  alike  outside  them- 
selves, and  they  talk  of  "my  lust,"  "my 
virtue,"  as  of  detached  and  portable  con- 
veniences. 

When  we  drop  to  a  lower  level  than  that  of 
pure  tragedy,  when  we  turn  to  characters  who 
are  grave,  or  mild,  or  melancholy,  or  unfor- 
tunate, rather  than  passionate,  intense,  and 
flexible,  we  find  that  Massinger  is  more  hi 
his  element.  "Grave  and  great-hearted,"  as 
Swinburne  calls  him,  he  could  bring  before  us, 
with  sympathetic  skill,  characters  whose  pre- 
dominant bent  is  towards  a  melancholy  and 
great-hearted  gravity,  a  calm  and  eloquent 
dignity,  a  self-sacrificing  nobility  of  service, 
or  lofty  endurance  of  inevitable  wrong.  Mas- 
singer's  favourite  play  was  The  Roman  Actor: 
"I  ever  held  it,"  he  says  in  his  dedication, 
"the  most  perfect  birth  of  my  Minerva." 


It  is  impossible  to  say  quite  that;  but  it  is 
certainly  representative  of  some  among  the 
noble  qualities  of  its  writer,  while  it  shows  very 
clearly  the  defects  of  these  qualities.  What 
it  represents  is  scarcely  human  nature;  but 
'actions  and  single  passions  painted  for  the 
halls  of  kings.  A  certain  cold  loftiness,  noble 
indeed,  but  not  attained  without  some  freez- 
ing of  vital  heat,  informs  it.  Paris,  the  actor, 
is  rather  a  grave  and  stately  shadow  than  a 
breathing  man;  but  the  idealization  is  nobly 
conceived;  and  both  actor  and  tyrant,  Paris 
and  Domitian,  are,  in  their  way,  impressive 
figures,  made  manifest,  not  concealed,  in 
rhetorical  prolusions  really  appropriate  to 
their  tune  and  character.  Another  classical 
play,  the  less-known  Believe  as  You  List, 
contains  a  figure  in  which  I  think  we  have  the 
very  best  work  of  which  Massinger  was 
capable.  The  character  of  the  deposed  and 
exiled  King  Antiochus  has  a  true  heroism 
and  kingliness  about  it;  his  language,  a  pas- 
sionate and  haughty  dignity.  The  quiet  con- 
stancy, the  undaunted  and  uncomplaining 
endurance  of  the  utmost  ills  of  Fate,  which 
mark  the  character  and  the  utterance  of  the 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  183 

Asian  Emperor,  raise  the  poetry  of  the  play 
to  a  height  but  seldom  attained  by  the  pedes- 
trian Pegasus  of  Massinger.  As  Antiochus 
is  the  most  impressive  of  his  heroes,  so  Flam- 
inius  is  one  of  the  most  really  human  and  con- 
sistent of  his  villains.  The  end  of  the  play  is 
natural,  powerful,  and  significant  beyond 
that  of  any  other;  so  natural,  powerful,  and 
significant,  that  we  may  feel  quite  sure  it  was 
received  with  doubtful  satisfaction  by  the 
audience  above  whose  head  and  against  whose 
taste  the  poet  had  for  once  chosen  to  write. 

In  one  or  two  striking  portraits  (those  for 
example  of  the  ironical  old  courtier  Eubulus 
in  The  Picture,  the  old  soldier  Archidamus 
in  The  Bondman,  or  the  faithful  friend  Romont 
in  The  Fatal  Dowry}  Massinger  has  shown  his 
appreciation  of  honest  worth  and  sober  fidel- 
ity, qualities  not  of  a  showy  kind,  the  recogni- 
tion and  representation  of  which  do  him  hon- 
our. In  The  Bashful  Lover  and  The  Maid  of 
Honour  he  has  represented  with  special  sym- 
pathy two  phases  of  reverential  and  modest 
love.  Hortensio,  of  the  former,  is  a  sort  of 
pale  Quixote,  a  knight-errant  a  little  crazed; 
very  sincere  v  and  a  trifle  given  to  uttering. 


184    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

vague  and  useless  professions  of  hyperbolical 
humility  and  devotion.  There  is  a  certain 
febrile  nobleness,  a  showy  chivalry,  about 
him;  but  we  are  conscious  of  something 
"got  up"  and  over-conscious  in  the  exhibi- 
tion. Adorni,  the  rejected  lover  in  The  Maid 
of  Honour,  is  a  truly  noble  and  pathetic 
picture;  altogether  without  the  specious  elo- 
quence and  petted  despair  of  Hortensio,  but 
thoroughly  human  and  rationally  self-sacri- 
ficing. His  duet  with  Camiola  at  the  close  of 
the  third  act  is  one  of  the  very  finest  scenes 
in  Massinger's  works:  that  passage  where  the 
woman  he  loves  despatches  him  to  the  rescue 
of  the  man  on  whom  her  own  heart  is  set. 
"You  will  do  this?"  she  says;  and  he  answers, 
"Faithfully,  madam,"  and  then  to  himself 
aside,  "but  not  live  long  after."  A  touch  of 
this  sort  is  but  too  rare  in  Massinger. 

While  I  am  speaking  of  The  Maid  of  Honour, 
let  me  refer  to  the  character  of  Camiola  her- 
self: incomparably  Massinger's  finest  portrait 
of  a  woman.  Camiola  ("that  small  but 
ravishing  substance,"  as,  with  a  rare  and 
infrequent  touch  of  delicate  characterization, 
she  is  somewhere  called)  is  notwithstanding  a 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  185 

few  flaws  in  her  delineation,  a  thoroughly 
delightful  and  admirable  creature;  full  of 
bright  strength  and  noble  constancy,  of  wom- 
anly heart  and  most  manly  spirit  and  wit. 
Her  bearing  in  the  scene,  to  a  part  of  which 
I  have  alluded,  is  admirable  throughout; 
not  admirable  alone,  but  exquisite,  are  her 
quick  "Never  think  more  then"  to  the  ser- 
vant; her  outcry  about  the  "petty  sum" 
of  the  ransom;  and  especially  the  words  of 
"perfect  moan"  which  fall  from  her  when 
she  learns  the  hopeless  estate  of  her  lover, 
imprisoned  by  his  enemy,  abandoned  by  his 
King: 

Possible!  pray  you,  stand  off. 
If  I  do  not  mutter  treason  to  myself, 
My  heart  will  break;  and  yet  I  will  not  curse  him; 
He  is  my  King.    The  news  you  have  delivered 
Makes  me  weary  of  your  company;  we'll  salute 
When  we  meet  next.    I'll  bring  you  to  the  door. 
Nay,  pray  you,  no  more  compliments. 

When  she  learns  of  the  treachery  of  the 
lover  for  whom  she  has  done  so  much,  her 
wondering  and  sorrowful  "0  Bertoldo!"  is 
worth  a  world  of  rhetoric.  It  is  she  who  utters 
the  most  famous  phrase  in  Massinger,  the 
fearless  indictment  of  the  Court  doctrine  of 


186    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

the  divinity  of  kings.  "With  your  leave," 
she  says  to  the  King  of  Sicily, 

With  your  leave,  I  must  not  kneel,  sir, 
While  I  reply  to  this:  but  thus  rise  up 
In  my  defence,  and  tell  you,  as  a  man, 
(Since,  when  you  are  unjust,  the  deity, 
Which  you  may  challenge  as  a  king,  parts  from  you) 
'Twas  never  read  in  holy  writ,  or  moral, 
That  subjects  on  their  loyalty  were  obliged 
To  love  their  sovereign's  vices. 

Her  speech  in  answer  to  Bertoldo's  hollow  pro- 
testations of  penitence,  the  "Pray  you,  rise," 
is  full  of  delicate  tact  and  subtle  beauty  of 
spirit. 

Unfortunately  all  Massinger's  women  are 
not  of  the  stamp  of  Camiola.  Lidia,  indeed, 
in  The  Great  Duke  of  Florence,  is  a  good, 
sweet,  modest  girl;  Cleora  in  The  Bondman 
would  like  to  be  so;  Bellisant  in  The  Parlia- 
ment of  Love  is  a  brilliant,  dashing  creature; 
Margaret  hi  A  New  Way  to  Pay  Old  Debts 
is  an  emphatically  nice,  shrewd,  pleasant 
woman;  and  Matilda  in  The  Bashful  Lover 
a  commonplace,  decent  young  person,  without 
a  thread  or  shade  of  distinction.  But  Massin- 
ger's general  conception  of  women,  and  the 
greater  number  of  his  portraits  of  them,  are 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  187 

alike  debased  and  detestable.  His  bad  women 
are  incredible  monsters  of  preposterous  vice; 
his  good  women  are  brittle  and  tainted.  They 
breathe  the  air  of  courts,  and  the  air  is  poisoned. 
Themselves  the  vilest,  they  walk  through  a 
violent  and  unnaturally  vicious  world  of 
depraved  imagination,  greedy  of  pleasure  and 
rhetorical  of  desire.  They  are  shamefacedly 
shameless;  offensive  and  without  passion; 
importunate  and  insatiable  Potiphar's  wives. 
"Pleasure's  their  heaven/'  affirms  somebody; 
and  their  pleasure  is  without  bit  or  bridle, 
without  rule  or  direction.  Massinger's  favour- 
ite situation  is  that  of  a  queen  or  princess 
violently  and  heedlessly  enamoured  of  a  man, 
apparently  of  mean  estate,  though  he  generally 
turns  out  to  be  a  duke  in  disguise,  whom  she 
has  never  seen  five  minutes  before.  Over 
and  over  again  is  this  wretched  farce  gone 
through;  always  without  passion,  sincerity, 
or  strength;  always  flatly,  coldly,  ridiculously. 
I  am  afraid  Massinger  thought  his  Donusas, 
Corsicas,  Domitias,  Aurelias,  Honorias,  and 
Beaumelles  brilliant  and  fascinating  flowers 
of  evil,  sisters  of  Cleopatra  and  Semiramis, 
magnificently  wicked  women.  In  reality  they 


188    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

never  attain  to  the  level  of  a  Delilah.  They 
are  vulgar-minded  to  the  core;  weak  and 
without  stability;  mere  animals  if  they  are  not 
mere  puppets.  The  stain  of  sensuality  or  the 
smutch  of  vulgarity  is  upon  even  the  virtuous. 
Marcelia,  in  The  Duke  of  Milan,  supposed  to 
be  a  woman  of  spotless  virtue,  utters  language 
full  of  covert  licence;  for  Massinger  seems  to 
see  virtue  in  women  mainly  as  a  sort  of  con- 
scious and  painful  restraint.  Eudocia,  in 
The  Emperor  of  the  East,  an  injured,  innocent 
wife,  betrays  an  unconscious  vulgarity  of 
mind  which  is  enough  to  withdraw  our  sym- 
pathy from  a  fairly  well-deserving  object.  The 
curious  thing  is,  not  so  much  that  the  same 
pen  could  draw  Camiola  and  Corsica,  but  that 
the  same  pen  could  draw  Camiola  and  Marcelia. 
Massinger's  main  field  is  the  romantic 
drama.  He  attempted,  indeed,  tragedy,  com- 
edy, and  history;  but  both  tragedy  and  history 
assume  in  his  hands  a  romantic  cast,  while  his 
two  great  comedies  verge  constantly  upon 
tragedy.  Of  his  two  most  distinct  and  most 
distinguished  tragedies,  The  Duke  of  Milan 
and  The  Fatal  Dowry,  the  former  is  a  powerful 
and  impressive  work,  rising  in  parts  to  his 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  189 

highest  level;  the  latter,  despite  its  conven- 
tional reputation,  which  it  owes  partly  to 
Howe's  effective  plagiarization  in  The  Fair 
Penitent,  a  scarcely  adequate  or  satisfactory 
production.  Two  or  three  passages1  in  the 
latter  part  of  The  Fatal  Dowry  have  the  true 
accent  of  nature;  but  even  these  are  marred 
by  the  base  alloy  with  which  they  are  mingled. 
But  The  Duke  of  Milan,  despite  much  that  is 
inadequate  and  even  absurd  in  its  handling, 
rises  again  and  again  to  something  of  passion 
and  of  insight.  The  character  and  the  cir- 
cumstances of  Sforza  have  been  often  com- 
pared with  those  of  Othello:  they  are  still 
more  similar,  I  should  venture  to  think,  to 
those  of  Griffith  Gaunt;  and  they  have  the 
damning  fault  of  the  latter,  that  the  jealousy 
and  its  consequences  are  not  made  to  seem 
quite  inevitable.  Sforza  is  an  example,  though 
perhaps  the  most  favourable  one,  of  that 
inconsequential  oscillation  of  nature  to  which 
I  have  already  referred  as  characteristic  of 

1  Found  chiefly  in  the  last  scene  of  the  fourth  act;  from 
"If  this  be  to  me,  rise,"  to  "That  to  be  merciful  should  be  a 
BUI,"  and  again  in  the  few  words  following  on  the  death  of 
Beaumelle;  with  a  passage  or  two  in  the  fifth  act. 


190    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

most  of  Massinger's  prominent  characters. 
But  his  capacity  for  sudden  and  extreme 
changes  of  disposition,  and  his  violent  and 
unhinged  passion,  are  represented  with  more 
dramatic  power,  with  more  force  and  natural- 
ness, than  it  is  at  all  usual  to  find  in  Mas- 
singer;  who  has  here  contrived  to  give  a  fre- 
quent effect  of  fineness  to  the  frenzies  and 
delusions  of  his  hero.  If  Sforza  is  after  all 
but  a  second-rate  Othello,  Marcelia  is  certainly 
a  very  shrewish  Desdemona,  and  Francisco  a 
palpably  poor  lago.1 

In  tragi-comedy,  the  romantic  drama  pure 
and  simple,  we  may  take  The  Great  Duke  of 
Florence  as  the  most  exquisite  example.  In 
this,  the  most  purely  delightful  play,  I  think, 
ever  written  by  Massinger,  a  play  which  we 
read,  to  use  Lamb's  expression,  "with  com- 
posure and  placid  delight,"  we  see  the  sweetest 
and  most  delicate  side  of  Massinger's  genius: 
a  country  pleasantness  and  freshness,  a  mas- 
querading and  genial  gravity,  altogether 

1  There  is  one  touch  however,  in  the  temptings  of 
Francisco  which  is  really  almost  worthy  of  lago: 

She's  yet  guilty 
Only  in  her  intent! 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  191 

charming  and  attractive.  The  plot  is  admi- 
rably woven;  and  how  prettily  brought  about 
to  a  happy  conclusion,  with  its  good  humour, 
forgiveness,  and  friendship  all  around!  There 
is  something  almost  of  Shakespeare's  charm 
in  people  and  events;  in  these  princes  and 
courtiers  without  ceremony  and  without  vice, 
uttering  pretty  sentiments  prettily,  and  play- 
ing elegantly  at  life;  in  these  simple  lovers, 
with  their  dainty,  easy  trials  and  crosses  on  the 
way  to  happiness;  in  the  villain  who  does  no 
real  harm,  and  whom  nobody  can  hate.  The 
Guardian,  a  late  play,  very  fine  and  flexible 
in  its  rhythm,  and  very  brisk  hi  its  action, 
has  some  exquisite  country  feeling,  together 
with  three  or  four  of  the  most  abominable 
characters  and  much  of  the  vilest  language 
in  Massinger.  One  character  at  least,  Dar- 
azzo,  the  male  of  Juliet's  nurse,  is  really, 
though  offensive  enough  in  all  conscience, 
very  heartily  and  graphically  depicted.  A 
Very  Woman,  again,  by  Massinger  and 
Fletcher,1  has  much  that  is  pleasant  and 
delightful;  some  of  it  full  of  sweetness,  with 

1  Fletcher's  slave-market  scene  in  Act  III  is  a  piece  of 
admirable  merriment;  singularly  realistic  and  inventive. 


192    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

some  that  is  rank  enough.  I  have  spoken 
already  of  The  Maid  of  Honour,  or  it  might  be 
mentioned  here  as  a  play  uniting  (somewhat 
as  in  Measure  for  Measure,  which  it  partly 
resembles)  the  lighter  and  graver  qualities 
of  tragedy  and  comedy  under  the  form  of  the 
romantic  drama. 

Massinger's  lack  of  humour  did  not  prevent 
him  from  writing  comedy,  nor  yet  from  achiev- 
ing signal  success  in  it.  A  New  Way  to  Pay 
Old  Debts  is  the  most  memorable  of  his  plays; 
but,  though  it  is  styled  a  comedy,  it  is  cer- 
tainly not  for  laughter  that  we  turn  to  it. 
A  New  Way  and  The  City  Madam  belong  to 
the  Comedy  of  Manners;  satirical  tran- 
script of  contemporary  life,  somewhat  after  the 
style  of  Terence  or  Plautus.  All  Massinger's 
plays  are  distinguished  by  an  earnest  and 
corrective  tone  on  contemporary  politics  and 
current  fashions;  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  he 
succeeded  in  a  species  of  play  devoted  wholly 
to  the  exhibition  and  satirization  of  the  follies 
and  vanities  of  the  day.  His  constant  touch 
on  manners,  even  in  romantic  plays  with  classi- 
cal or  eastern  localities,  is  peculiar,  and 
suggests  a  certain  pre-occupation  with  the 


PHILIP  MASSINGER  193 

subject,  possibly  due  to  early  associations  at 
Wilton  House,  possibly  to  mere  personal  bent 
or  circumstances.  Remembering  the  letter 
of  1G24,  we  may  be  allowed  to  fancy  a  personal 
applicability  in  the  frequent  denunciations 
of  usurers  and  delineations  of  the  misery  of 
poor  debtors.  But  besides  that,  I  think  that 
Massinger,  having  no  force  to  enter  into  the 
deep  and  secret  chambers  of  the  soul,  found 
his  place  to  be  in  a  censorship  of  society,  and 
was  right  in  concerning  himself  with  what  he 
could  do  so  well.  His  professedly  comic 
types,  even  Justice  Greedy,  are  mere  ex- 
aggerations, solitary  traits  frozen  into  the 
semblance  of  men,  without  really  comic  effect. 
But  in  the  conduct  of  these  two  plays,  in  the 
episodical  illuminations  of  London  and  pro- 
vincial life,  in  the  wealth  of  observation  and 
satire  which  they  exhibit,  Massinger  has  left 
us  work  of  permanent  value;  and  in  the  char- 
acter of  Sir  Giles  Overreach  he  has  made  his 
single  contribution  to  the  gallery  of  permanent 
illustrations  of  human  nature:  a  portrait  to 
be  spoken  of  with  Grandet  and  with  Harpagon. 
Massinger  is  the  product  of  his  period,  and 
he  reflects  faithfully  the  temper  of  court  and 


194    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

society  under  the  first  Charles.  Much  that 
we  have  to  regret  in  him  was  due  to  the  mis- 
fortune of  his  coming  just  when  he  did,  at  the 
ebb  of  a  spent  wave;  but  the  best  that  he  had 
was  all  his  own.  Serious,  a  thinker,  a  moralist, 
gifted  with  an  instinct  for  nobility  and  a 
sympathy  in  whatever  is  generous  and  self- 
sacrificing,  a  practical  student  of  history, 
and  an  honest  satirist  of  social  abuses,  he  was 
at  the  same  time  an  admirable  story-teller, 
and  a  master  of  dramatic  construction.  But 
his  grave  and  varied  genius  was  lacking  in 
the  primary  requirements  of  the  dramatist: 
in  imagination,  in  strength,  in  sincerity.  He 
has  no  real  mastery  over  the  passions,  and  his 
eloquence  does  not  appeal  to  the  heart.  He 
interests  us  strongly;  but  he  does  not  convince 
us  in  spite  of  ourselves.  The  whole  man  is 
seen  in  the  portrait  by  which  we  know  him: 
in  the  contrast  and  contradiction  of  that 
singular  face,  which  interests,  to  some  degree 
attracts,  yet  never  satisfies  us,  with  its  melan- 
choly and  thoughtful  grace,  marred  by  a  cer- 
tain vague  weakness  and  a  scarcely  definable 
sense  of  something  lacking. 
1887. 


XII.    JOHN    DAY 

JOHN  DAY,  "sometime  Student  of  Caius 
College,  Cambridge,"  a  "base  fellow"  and  a 
"rogue"  according  to  Ben  Jonson,  a  good 
man  and  a  charming  writer  if  the  evidence  of 
his  own  plays  may  be  credited,  seems  to  have 
come  down  to  posterity  in  the  person  of  his 
best  work,  and  of  little  beside  his  best.  When 
he  began  to  write  for  the  stage  is  not  known, — 
before  1593,  some  have  supposed — but  we 
learn  from  Henslowe's  Diary  that  in  the  six 
years  from  1598  to  1603  he  had  a  whole 
or  part  share  in  as  many  as  twenty-two  plays, 
only  one  of  which,  The  Blind  Beggar  of  Bednal 
Green,  has  come  down  to  us.  These  plays 
were:  in  1598,  The  Conquest  of  Brute,  with  the 
first  finding  of  the  Bath  (Day,  assisted  by 
Chettle);  in  1599,  The  Tragedy  of  Merry 
and  The  Tragedy  of  Cox  of  Collumpton  (with 
Haughton),  The  Orphan's  Tragedy  (with  Haugh- 
ton  and  Chettle);  hi  1600,  unassisted,  The 
Italian  Tragedy  of  ...  [name  wanting  in 
195 


196    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

the  Diary],  The  Spanish  Moor's  Tragedy  and 
The  Seven  Wise  Masters  (with  Dekker  and 
Haughton),  The  Golden  Ass,  and  Cupid  and 
Psyche  (with  Dekker  and  Chettle),  The  Blind 
Beggar  of  Bednal  Green  (with  Chettle);  in 
1601,  The  Second  Part  of  the  Blind  Beggar, 
and  The  Third  Part  (also  with  Chettle),  The 
Conquest  of  the  West  Indies  (with  Haughton 
and  Wentworth  Smith),  The  Six  Yeomen  of 
the  West,  Friar  Rush  and  the  Proud  Women  of 
Antwerp,  and  The  Second  Part  of  Tom  Dough 
(all  three  with  Haughton) ;  in  1602,  unassisted, 
The  Bristol  Tragedy;  Merry  as  may  be,  The 
Black  Dog  of  Newgate,  The  Second  Part  of  the 
Black  Dog,  The  Unfortunate  General  (all  with 
Hathway  and  Wentworth  Smith),  and  The 
Boast  of  Billingsgate  (with  Hathway  and 
others);  in  1603  or  earlier,  Jane  Shore  (with 
Chettle).  In  1610,  we  learn  from  the  Sta- 
tioners' Register,  Day  wrote  a  play  called 
The  Mad  Pranks  of  Merry  Moll  of  the  Bank- 
side;  in  1619,  with  Dekker,  The  Life  and  Death 
of  Guy  of  Warwick;  again  with  Dekker,  in 
or  before  1623,  a  "French  tragedy"  of  The 
Bellman  of  Paris;  and  in  1623,  a  comedy, 
Come  see  a  Wonder.  Of  extant  plays,  The 


JOHN  DAY  197 

Isle  of  Gulls  was  published  in  1606;  The  Travels 
of  the  Three  English  Brothers,  Sir  Thomas, 
Sir  Anthony,  Mr.  Robert  Shirley  (written  in 
conjunction  with  Rowley  and  Wilkins),  in 
1607;  Law-Tricks,  or  Who  would  have  thought 
it,  and  Humour  out  of  Breath,  in  1608;  The 
Parliament  of  Bees,  in  1641;  and  The  Blind 
Beggar  in  1659.  There  is  also  extant  in  the 
British  Museum  (Sloane  MS.  3150)  an  alle- 
gorical prose  tract  entitled  Peregrinatio  Scho- 
lastica,  first  published  in  Mr.  Bullen's  collected 
edition  of  Day's  works  in  1881;  a  begging 
acrostic  on  the  name  of  Thomas  Dowton,  an 
actor;  an  undated  letter  of  Day  from  which 
we  learn  of  a  poem  on  The  Miracles  of  Christ; 
a  few  autograph  lines  belonging  to  some  lost 
historical  play:  "the  rest  is  silence." 

It  is  not  a  pleasant  thought  that  a  writer  of 
such  dainty  and  select  genius  as  the  author 
of  The  Parliament  of  Bees  should  have  had 
to  labour  so  hard,  on  such  unworthy  material, 
for  so  unthankworthy  a  public  as  that  which 
left  him  to  borrow  of  Henslowe  two  shillings, 
or  it  may  be  five  shillings — "in  Redy  money," 
as  the  record  quaintly  states.  That  the 
main  part  at  least  of  these  lost  plays  was  but 


198    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

journeyman's  work,  work  sufficient  to  the  day 
and  the  evil  thereof,  seems  evident  from  the 
mere  titles,  a  small  proportion  no  doubt  of 
the  whole,  that  have  come  down  to  us.  Even 
Mr.  Bullen  finds  it  impossible  to  regret  the 
loss;  and  he  would  be  content  to  spare  the 
Three  English  Brothers  and  the  Blind  Beggar 
as  well.  The  fact  is,  Day's  range  is  exception- 
ally limited,  and  outside  his  circle  he  has  no 
magic. 

In  turning  over  the  pages  of  Lamb's  Speci- 
mens, it  is  with  something  of  relief,  after  so 
much  that  is  bloody  and  gloomy,  that  we  come 
on  the  two  or  three  brief  extracts  from  The 
Parliament  of  Bees,  by  which  alone,  for  so  long 
a  space  of  tune,  the  name  of  John  Day  was 
known  to  English  readers.  They  are  so  light 
and  bright,  so  delicate  hi  the  wording  and 
phrasing,  so  aloof  and  apart  from  the  com- 
monness of  everyday  doings,  or  the  sombre 
action  of  that  little  world  of  the  Elizabethan 
drama.  The  choicest  of  Day's  work  comes 
with  just  such  a  sense  of  relief  to  the  student 
who  has  traversed  that  country  widely.  It 
is  a  wayside  rest,  a  noontide  hour  in  the  cool 
shadow  of  the  woods.  There  is  something  so 


JOHN  DAY  199 

pleasant  about  the  work,  that  we  find  our- 
selves pardoning  its  faults  and  overlooking 
its  shortcomings,  almost  without  thinking 
about  them.  Day — it  is  clear  if  we  really 
consider  the  matter — has  but  a  very  slight 
insight  into  human  nature,  only  a  very  faint 
power  of  touching  or  moving  us,  no  power 
whatever  to  mould  a  coherent  figure  or  paint 
a  full-length  portrait;  as  to  plot,  he  is  content 
with  none  at  all,  as  in  the  Bees,  or,  as  in  the 
other  three  comedies,  the  plot  is  of  such 
fantastic  and  intricate  slightness,  a  very 
spider's-web  of  filmy  threads,  that  it  is  not 
to  be  grasped  without  coming  to  pieces.  His 
wit  is  a  clear  flame,  but  thin  and  only  inter- 
mittent. Day's  natural  gift  in  that  way  is 
not  so  rich  that  it  can  stand  a  long  draw  on  its 
exchequer.  The  good  money  becomes  used 
up,  and  then,  instead  of  putting  up  the 
shutters,  the  bank  passes  bad  currency.  All 
these  are  serious  faults;  they  are  leaks  enough 
to  sink  a  weightier  reputation;  but,  somehow, 
they  do  no  more  than  temper  our  delight  in 
Day.  The  world  of  his  fancy  is  not  the 
world  of  our  common  sunlight;  and  life  is 
lived  otherwise,  and  men  and  women  are  some- 


200    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

what  other  than  the  men  and  women  of  our 
knowledge,  there.  It  is  a  land  into  which 
the  laws  of  logic  can  scarcely  come;  a  land 
where  gentle  and  petulant  figures  come  and 
go  like  figures  in  a  masque,  aimlessly  enough, 
yet  to  measure,  always  with  happy  effect, 
threading  the  forest  paths  as  we  see  ourselves 
in  dreams,  dreams  sleeping  or  waking,  ever 
on  the  heels  of  some  pleasing  or  exciting 
adventure.  The  conversation,  whenever  it 
is  good,  is  carried  on  in  jests,  or  in  flights  of 
lyrical  fancy,  somewhat  as  in  Shakespeare's 
early  comedies,  somewhat  with  a  sort  of 
foretaste  of  the  comedies  of  Congreve.  If  it 
is  not  the  talk  of  real  life,  it  is  at  least  a  select 
rendering  of  our  talk  at  its  brightest  and 
freest,  when  black  care  is  away,  and  the  brain 
is  quickened  and  the  tongue  loosened  by  some 
happy  chance,  among  responsive  friends  in 
tune  with  a  blithe  mood.  It  is  how  we  should 
often  like  to  talk;  and  that  accord  with  our 
likings  of  things,  as  apart  from  our  conscious- 
ness, not  always  pleasant,  of  them,  is  the 
secret  of  a  certain  harmony  we  seem  to  feel 
in  those  parts  of  Day's  comedies  which  are 
least  like  life.  He  steps  quite  through  the 


JOHN  DAY  201 

ugly  surface  of  things,  freeing  us,  as  we  take 
the  step  with  him,  of  all  the  disabilities  of 
our  never  quite  satisfied  existence. 

This  land  of  fancy  to  which  Day  leads  us, 
is  essentially  quite  as  much  a  land  of  fancy 
in  the  comedies  which  profess  to  chronicle  the 
doings  of  men  and  women,  as  in  the  comedy 
whose  dramatis  persona^  are  all  bees.  In  The 
Isle  of  Gulls,  Law-Tricks  and  Humour  out 
of  Breath,  equally  as  to  the  spirit,  very 
differently  as  regards  the  point  of  execution, 
Day  has  painted  life  as  it  pleased  him  to  see 
it — in  a  delightful  confusion,  made  up  of 
entanglements,  disguises,  jests,  sudden  ad- 
ventures, good-hearted  merriment,  a  comedy 
within  a  comedy.  Compared  with  Humour 
out  of  Breath,  the  two  other  plays  have  a  cer- 
tain coarseness  of  texture — comparative  only, 
let  it  be  understood;  the  action  is  not  so  pleas- 
ant, nor  the  wit  so  spontaneous.  They  are 
immensely  lively,  always  entertaining,  ravelled 
up  with  incomparable  agility,  full  of  business, 
wit  and  humour;  breaking  every  now  and 
then  into  seriousness,  and,  in  the  later  play 
particularly,  blossoming  out  quite  unexpectedly 
into  a  tender  and  lyrical  pathos;  as  in  that 


' 


202    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

scene  where  the  forsaken  countess  talks  with 
such  sweet  sadness  to  her  maids  as  they  sit 
at  their  sewing — a  little  passage  of  pure 
exquisiteness,  reminding  one,  as  now  and  again 
Day  will  remind  us,  of  certain  of  the  loveliest 
bits  of  Shakespeare.  In  another  single  scene 
in  The  Isle  of  Gulls,  the  tennis-court  scene, 
we  find  a  quite  typical  example  of  Day's 
special  variety  of  wit,  thin  and  captious 
indeed,  but  swift  in  its  interchange  of  strokes 
as  the  tennis-balls,  flying  to  and  fro,  with 
sharp  and  harmless  knocks,  in  repartees  deftly 
delivered  and  straight  to  their  aim.  It  is  in 
Humour  out  of  Breath,  however, — so  suggest- 
ively named,  and  so  truly,  for  the  little  play 
keeps  us  breathless  at  the  heels  of  its  breath- 
less actors — here,  rather  than  anywhere  else 
outside  The  Parliament  of  Bees,  that  the  spe- 
cial note  of  Day's  cheerful  genius  is  heard 
most  clearly.  It  has  his  finest  polish,  the 
cream  of  his  wit,  the  pick  of  his  women. 
Day's  women  are  singularly  charming:  they 
are  all  of  one  type,  and  that  no  very  subtle 
one,  but  they  are  immensely  likable,  and  in 
this  play  we  have  the  very  best  of  them, — 
Florimel,  Emilia's  sister,  Hippolyta's  and 


JOHN  DAY  203 

Violetta's,  but  the  most  beautiful  and  brilliant 
of  her  sisters.  Emilia,  in  Law-Tricks,  reminds 
us,  by  anticipation,  of  Millimant;  as  Miso,  in 
The  Isle  of  Gulls,  with  her  "As  I  am  a  Lady," 
seems  almost  like  a  faint  foreshadowing  of  the 
most  tragic  figure  on  the  English  Comic 
stage,  Lady  Wishfort.  But  Florimel,  calling 
up  no  associations  of  Congreve  or  any  other, 
proves  the  most  delightful  of  companions. 
She,  like  her  sisters,  is  a  creature  of  moods, 
bright,  witty,  full  of  high  spirits,  very  free- 
spoken,  but  less  free  in  action  than  in  speech; 
a  thoroughly  English  girl,  perhaps  the  ideal 
of  our  favourite  mettlesome  breed.  You  can 
see  her  lips  and  eyes  in  a  smile,  flashing  as 
her  saucy  words;  and  she  is  good-hearted, 
capable  of  strength  in  love.  Here,  as  so  often 
elsewhere,  Day's  instinctive  sympathy  with 
whatever  is  honest,  lovely  and  of  good  report, 
shows  itself  in  unthought-of  touches.  He 
cannot  conceive  a  villain;  his  fantastic  figures 
and  the  fantasy  of  his  action  have  alike  a  basis 
of  honesty  and  rectitude,  never  intrusive, 
scarcely  visible  perhaps,  often,  but  there  if 
we  choose  to  look  for  it.  Just  this  quality, 
going  out  into  very  homely  material,  gives  to 


204    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

the  hasty,  irregular,  rough  and  romping  play 
of  The  Blind  Beggar  of  Bednal  Green  a  saving 
grace,  and  not  of  morals,  but  of  art;  for  it  is  a 
touch  of  nature.  Touches  of  nature  there 
are,  but  of  another  kind,  in  Humour  out  of 
Breath;  always,  however  sincere,  however 
serious,  with  an  after-thought  or  atmosphere 
of  brightness  in  or  about  them :  as  in  Aspero's 
wooing  of  Florimel,  passing  out  of  jests  and 
quibbles  into  hearty  earnest,  earnest  from  the 
first  perhaps  on  both  sides,  though  the  lady 
has  a  dancing  wit,  and  the  gentleman  goads 
a  sober  tongue  to  curvets.  How  pretty  a 
touch  of  nature  is  this:  "I  cannot  live  without 
him!"  cries  Florimel,  when  her  saucy  petu- 
lance has  driven  away  her  lover.  "0  that  he 
knew  it,  lady,"  suggests  the  quick-witted 
little  page,  at  fault  for  once  in  a  lover's  moods; 
for,  "He  does,"  returns  Florimel,  never  at 
fault;  "he  would  never  have  left  me  else.  Hie 
does!"  Touches  of  this  sort,  true  to  nature 
in  the  more  intimate  and  subtle  sense,  are  not 
common  in  Day;  he  is  not  wont  to  reveal  any- 
thing new  to  us  in  our  own  hearts,  or  to  go 
often  below  the  surface.  It  would  be  unfair 
to  lay  this  to  his  charge,  for  he  does  not  profess 


JOHN  DAY  203 

to  give  us  more  than  we  find  in  him.  "Hu- 
mour out  of  breath,"  a  world  where  wit  is 
the  all  in  all — this  is  what  he  gives  us;  a  world, 
how  delightful  to  contemplate,  where  men  and 
women  are  so  careful  of  their  jests,  and  the 
measure  and  harmony  of  this  absorbing  play- 
business,  that  they  will  even  (as  Polymeter 
says  on  some  occasion,  in  another  play)  "leave 
at  a  jest,"  and  turn  the  conversation  after  a 
period  of  punning. 

I  have  said  that  the  scene  of  these  three 
comedies  is  virtually  a  land  of  fancy;  in 
The  Parliament  of  Bees  it  is  not  only  virtually 
but  formally  so.  No  instinct  could  have 
been  happier  than  that  which  led  Day — could 
it  have  been  with  any  thought  of  Aristophanes? 
—to  turn  the  "men  and  women  fashioned  by 
his  fancy"  into  bees,  and  give  them  a  whole 
play  to  themselves.  That  this  was  an  after- 
thought, only  come  upon  after  a  large  part  of 
what  now  forms  the  play  was  written,  seems 
evident;  for,  as  Mr.  Bullen  has  pointed  out, 
"with  the  exception  of  characters  1,  11,  and 
12,  which  were  plainly  written  for  the  occa- 
sion, the  masque  seems  to  have  been  made  up 
of  scenes,  more  or  less  revised,  contributed 


206    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

to  [Dekker's]  Wonder  of  a  Kingdom,  [Samuel 
Rowley's]  Spanish  Soldier,  and  other  plays 
that  have  either  been  lost  or  where  the  con- 
nection remains  yet  to  be  pointed  out."  There 
is  not  even  an  attempt  at  anything  like  a  plot; 
what  we  have  is  a  sequence  of  scenes,  sketch- 
ing, and  lightly  satirising,  the  " humours" 
of  the  age  under  this  queer  disguise  of  the  bees. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  Day  ever  intended  it, 
but  in  this  fantastic  masque  of  his  there  are  all 
the  elements  of  an  heroically  comic  picture 
of  life;  life  seen  from  the  point  of  view  of  an 
outside  observer,  in  all  its  eager  stir  and 
passion,  so  petty  and  so  vain  if  one  could  look 
down  on  it  from  above — hi  all  its  strenuous 
littlenesses,  its  frail  strength,  its  gigantic 
self-delusions;  petty,  all  of  it,  to  the  Gods, 
as  these  tiny  creatures,  with  their  insect  life 
of  a  summer,  seem  to  men.  Here  is  the  quack, 
the  braggart,  the  spendthrift,  each  with  all 
the  passions  of  a  man — and  just  as  long  as  your 
nail!  But  if  this  view  enters  at  all  into 
Day's  scheme,  it  is  suffered  to  add  no  bitter- 
ness, no  touch  of  spleen,  to  this  sweet  and 
gracious  little  play,  revised,  as  we  know  from 
an  earlier  manuscript  still  existing,  with  such 


JOHN  DAY  207 

a  tender  care,  not  only  for  the  clear  polish  of 
the  lines,  but  equally  for  the  pleasant  whole- 
someness  of  the  story,  the  honesty  and  fair 
fame  of  the  little  personages.  Quite  the  best 
scene,  the  sixth,  between  Arethusa  and  Ulania 
concerning  Meletus,  has  gained  the  most  from 
this  revision:  it  is  free  now  from  any  speck, 
and  is  one  of  the  loveliest  pastorals  in  our 
language,  a  little  masterpiece  of  dainty  in- 
vention, honey-hearted  and  without  a  sting; 
touching  at  one  point,  in  the  last  speech  of 
the  poor  neglected  bee,  the  last  limits  of  Day's 
capacity  for  pensive  and  tender  pathos.  Noth- 
ing in  the  play  is  so  bee- like,  nothing  so  human, 
as  this  all-golden  episode;  though  in  pastoral 
loveliness  it  is  touched,  I  think,  by  the  wood- 
notes  of  the  final  octosyllabics — verses  of 
exquisite  inappropriateness  for  bees,  but  with 
all  the  smell  and  freshness  of  the  country  in 
them,  a  pageant  of  the  delightful  things  of 
nature  and  husbandry,  written  in  rhymes  that 
gambol  in  pairs  like  lambs  or  kids  in  spring. 

Without  The  Parliament  of  Bees  we  should 
never  have  known  what  Day  was  capable  of. 
The  wit  and  invention  of  his  comedies  of 
adventure  make  up,  it  is  true,  a  very  distant 


208    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

and  a  very  important  part  of  his  claim  on  the 
attention  of  posterity;  but  these  comedies, 
after  all,  are  very  largely  written,  especially 
in  the  best  parts  of  them,  in  prose,  and  it 
is  as  a  poetical  craftsman  that  Day  is  most 
himself  and  most  perfect.  Such  a  line  as 
this: 

Who  then  shall  reap  the  golden  crop  you  sow? 

bears  the  very  sign  and  seal  of  Day.  Or, 
again: 

The  windows  of  my  hive,  with  blossoms  dight, 
Are  porters  to  let  in  our  comfort,  light. 

Our  comfort,  light — the  very  cadence  of  these 
beautiful  words  rings  of  Day,  and  the  meaning 
equally  with  the  sound.  His  peculiar  vein 
of  fancy  comes  out  typically  in  those  lines 
where  the  Plush  Bee  longs,  like  Alexander, 
for  "ten  worlds" — indeed  to  sell,  but  to  sell 
"for  Alpine  hills  of  silver,"  so  prettily  extrava- 
gant, so  new  and  unthought-of  a  phrase. 
Familiar  and  quite  ordinary  ideas,  common- 
place thoughts,  take  in  his  mind  an  aspect 
which  gives  them  all  the  charm  of  a  pleasing 
novelty — a  fanciful  aspect,  very  fresh  and 


JOHN  DAY  209 

pleasant,  the  good  cheer  of  fancy.  There  is 
often  an  airy  spring  in  his  moods,  lifting  his 
honest  commonplaces  quite  off  the  ground; 
transforming  them,  as  frost  transforms  and 
transfigures  the  bare  branches  of  the  trees. 
The  very  sound  of  his  rhymes  is  a  delight  in 
itself,  as  in  those  lines  which  tell  how 

of  the  sudden,  listening,  you  shall  hear 
A  noise  of  horns  and  hunting,  which  shall  bring 
Actaeon  to  Diana  in  the  spring. 

Instinctive  harmony — a  sense  of  delicate  music 
in  the  fall  and  arrangement  of  quite  common 
words,  entirely  without  factitious  aid,  as  of 
undue  alliteration,  or  the  smallest  sacrifice 
of  matter  to  metre — this  is  his  gift;  and  it  is 
without  any  appearance  of  effort  that  verse 
flows  after  beautiful  verse,  so  easy  does  it 
seem  for  him  to  "add  to  golden  numbers 
golden  numbers."  Easy  or  not,  we  know  it 
was  not  without  labour  that  this  play  of  his 
became  what  it  is.  Day  was  no  trifler,  slight, 
airy,  fantastically  delicate  as  his  work  may 
be;  it  was  not  a  trifler,  a  workman  careless 
of  the  things  of  art  ,who  wrote  these  lines: 

The  true  Poet  indeed  doth  scorn  to  gild 
A  coward's  tomb  with  glories,  or  to  build 


210    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

A  sumptuous  pyramid  of  golden  verse 
Over  the  ruins  of  an  ignoble  hearse. 
His  lines  like  his  inventions  are  born  free, 
And  both  live  blameless  to  eternity: 
He  holds  his  reputation  so  dear 
As  neither  flattering  hope  nor  servile  fear 
Can  bribe  his  pen  to  temporize  with  kings: 
The  blacker  are  their  crimes,  he  louder  sings. 

The  writer  of  these  splendid  lines  was  no 
"base  fellow"  such  as  Ben  Jonson's  hasty 
spleen  would  have  dubbed  him,  but  a  poet 
with  an  instinctive  sense  of  melody  which 
Jonson  never  possessed,  and  an  ideal  of  art 
as  lofty  as  Jonson's  own.  His  work  has  no 
conquering  force,  no  massive  energy,  no  super- 
abundance of  life;  these  qualities  we  can  get 
elsewhere,  but  nowhere  save  in  Day  that 
special  charm  of  fancy  and  wit  and  bright 
invention,  "golden  murmurs  from  a  golden 
hive,"  for  which,  if  there  is  any  saving  grace 
in  these  things,  we  can  suppose  his  name 
will  live  a  little  longer  yet. 

1888. 


XIII.    MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY 

THOMAS  MIDDLETON  is  thought  to  have 
been  born  in  London  about  1570;  he  died 
there,  and  was  buried  at  Newington  Butts 
on  4  July,  1627.  All  that  we  know  about 
him  is  that  he  married  a  daughter  of  one  of  the 
six  clerks  in  chancery,  and  had  a  son  in  1604; 
that  he  was  city  chronologer  from  1620  till 
the  time  of  his  death,  when  he  was  succeeded 
by  Ben  Jonson;  that,  in  1624,  he  was  sum- 
moned before  the  privy  council,  with  the  actors 
who  had  played  in  his  Game  of  Chess,  and,  it 
appears,  put  in  prison  at  the  instigation  of 
Godomar,  the  Spanish  ambassador;  and  that, 
in  1619,  Ben  Jonson  spoke  of  him  to  Drum- 
mond  of  Hawthornden  as  "  a  base  fellow." 
This  hard  saying  may,  after  all,  have  been 
meant  as  no  more  than  a  literary  criticism. 
The  words  are :  "that  Markham  (who  added  his 
English  Arcadia)  was  not  of  the  number 
of  the  Faithful,  i.e.,  Poets,  and  but  a  base 
fellow.  That  such  were  Day  and  Middleton.' 
211 


212    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

This  might  mean  no  more  than  that,  to 
Johnson,  Middleton' s  art  or  verse  seemed 
"base,"  in  the  sense  of  pedestrian,  or  going  on 
a  low  level.  Nothing  more  was  said  about 
him  by  anyone  of  consequence,  except  a 
passing  word  from  Scott,  until  the  time  of 
Lamb's  Specimens  of  English  Dramatic  Poetry 
in  1808.  Lamb  gave  copious  and  carefully- 
chosen  extracts  from  his  plays,  and  said 
almost  all  the  essential  things  about  him; 
Leigh  Hunt  followed,  picking  up  the  one  grain 
left  over  by  Lamb;  and,  in  1860,  Dyce  brought 
out  a  complete  edition  of  the  plays,  which  was 
re-edited  and  extended  by  Bullen  in  1885.  Of 
William  Rowley,  there  has  never  been  any 
edition,  and  we  know  even  less  of  him  than  of 
Middleton.  He  is  conjectured  to  have  been 
born  about  1585  and  to  have  died  some  time 
after  1637,  the  year  of  his  marriage.  He  was 
an  actor  in  various  companies,  and  is  sup- 
posed to  have  revised  plays  for  new  perform- 
ances. For  the  most  part,  he  collaborated 
with  other  playwrights,  especially  with  Mid- 
dleton; and  the  finest  work  of  both  Middleton 
and  Rowley  is  done  in  this  collaboration. 
His  chief  play,  All's  Lost  by  Lust,  has  never  been 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         213 

reprinted  from  the  scarce  original  edition  of 
1633.  Besides  the  plays,  he  published,  in 
1609,  A  Search  for  Money;  or,  the  Lamentable 
Complaint  for  the  Loss  of  the  Wandering  Knight, 
Monsieur  L' Argent,  a  pamphlet  in  the  manner 
of  the  time,  full  of  crude  realistic  satire, 
written  in  his  abrupt,  lean  and  downright 
prose. 

The  earliest  work  attributed  to  Middleton 
is  an  endless  composition  in  six-line  stanzas 
called  The  Wisdom  of  Solomon  Paraphrased, 
published  in  1597.  The  dedication  to  Lord 
Devereaux,  and  an  address,  wanting  in  some 
copies,  "to  the  Gentlemen-Readers,"  are  both 
signed  Thomas  Middleton,  and  we  can  but 
hope  that  it  was  someone  else  of  the  same  name. 
Addressing  the  critics,  as  Momus  and  Zoilus, 
the  writer  regrets,  not  quite  truthfully,  "I 
lack  a  scarecrow,"  and  bids  them  "  if  you  gape 
for  stuffing,  hie  you  to  dead  carrion  carcases, 
and  make  them  your  ordinaries."  But  no  better 
fare  is  provided,  and  a  sufficient  scarecrow  has 
been  set  up  over  this  unploughed  field  by  every 
subsequent  editor.  The  task,  if  he  really 
endured  it,  must  have  effectually  cured  Mid- 
dleton of  any  further  inclination  for  preaching. 


214    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

"0  weak  capacity  of  strongest  wit!"  he  la- 
ments, and  with  justice;  yet,  two  years  after- 
wards, seems  to  have  attempted  satire  with  no 
less  futility  than  sermonising.  Micro-cynicon. 
Sixe  Snarling  Satyres,  published  in  1599,  has 
been  attributed  to  Middleton  for  no  more  cer- 
tain reason  than  the  signature  "T.  M.  Gent" 
which  follows  the  introductory  Defiance  to 
Envy  with  which  the  writer,  in  imitation  of 
Hall,  introduces  his  first  and  only  book  of 
satires.  They  are  weakly  imitated  from  Mar- 
ston. 

My  pen's  two  nebs  shall  turn  into  a  fork, 
Chasing  old  Envy  from  so  young  a  work, 

the  writer  threatens;  but  the  threat  could  not 
possibly  have  been  needed.  The  "snarling 
Muse  now  thundering  rhyme"  so  feebly  must 
have  been  beyond  the  reach  of  envy,  and  is 
now  too  insignificant  to  need  identification. 
But  Middleton  was  an  unequal  writer,  and  it 
is  impossible  to  discredit  even  such  bad  work 
as  being  unlikely  because  unworthy  to  have 
been  written  by  him. 

His  mark  is  much  more  distinctly  to  be 
traced  in  two  pamphlets  published  in  1604, 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         213 

and  signed  T.  M.  in  their  epistles  to  the  reader. 
The  less  interesting  of  them  is  Father  Hubburd's 
Tales,  which  contains  a  good  deal  of  indiffer- 
ent verse,  no  better  than  Middleton's  lyric 
verse  usually  is.  Its  main  interest  for  us  is 
in  the  very  kindly  and  regretful  praise  of 
Nashe,  whom  he  calls  "honest  soul,"  "too 
slothful  to  thyself,"  "cut  off  in  thy  best  bloom- 
ing May": 

Drones  eat  thy  honey:  thou  wast  the  true  bee. 

The  tract  is  one  of  the,  allegorising  satires  of 
the  time,  written  in  a  slow  narrative  style, 
with  abundant  detail  of  the  manners  and 
fashions  censured,  and  a  good  deal  of  quite 
sober  realism  in  the  descriptions  and  incidents. 
The  Black  Book  is  more  extravagant  and  more 
pungent,  and  is  like  a  sample  of  the  raw 
material,  presented  to  us  by  the  playwright 
in  his  first  self-conscious  pose  as  moralist. 
He  parades  as  one  "diving  into  the  deep  of 
this  cunning  age"  and  bringing  to  light  "the 
infectious  bulks  of  craft,  cozenage,  and  pan- 
derism,  the  three  bloodhounds  of  a  common- 
wealth." And  he  professes  that  his  lively 
exposures  are  meant  for  the  warning  and 


216    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

confirming  of  the  "truly  virtuous,"  and  com- 
mends himself  for  "the  modesty  of  my  phrases, 
that  even  blush  when  they  discover  vices  and 
unmask  the  world's  shadowed  villanies."  The 
tale  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  Lucifer,  who 
speaks  his  own  prologue  in  a  vigorous  piece 
of  blank  verse  and  rime,  by  way  of  response 
to  Nashe's  dedication  of  Pierce  Pennilesse  to 
"the  high  and  mightie  Prince  of  darknesse, 
Donsell  dell  Lucifer,  King  of  Acheron,  Stix 
and  Phlegeton,  Duke  of  Tartary,  Marquesse 
of  Cocytus,  and  Lord  high  Regent  of  Lymbo." 
The  pamphlet  is  done  in  Nashe's  manner, 
and  shows  no  less  knowledge  of  its  subject. 
It  describes  what  may  well  have  been  Nashe's 
death-bed,  seen  by  "the  sullen  blaze  of  a  melan- 
choly lamp  that  burnt  very  tragically  upon  the 
narrow  desk  of  a  half-bedstead,  which  descried 
all  the  pitiful  ruins  throughout  the  whole 
chamber."  It  shows  glimpses  of  "your  twelve 
tribes  of  villany,"  at  much  the  same  machina- 
tions as  in  the  plays;  and  the  devil,  having 
gone  to  and  fro  in  London,  "to  gorge  every 
vice  full  of  poison,"  sits  down  to  make  out  his 
last  will  and  testament,  leaving  legacies  "like 
ratsbane,  to  poison  the  realm,"  in  a  catalogue 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         217 

of  the  more  profitable  of  the  vices.  We  see 
Middleton,  for  all  his  drawing  of  a  moral,  very 
interestedly  at  home  in  the  details  of  all  that 
he  denounces;  preparing  himself,  deliberately 
or  not,  for  his  work  as  a  writer  of  dramatic 
comedy. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  The  Mayor  of  Queen- 
borough,  which  was  printed  with  Middleton's 
name  in  1661,  is  the  earliest  play  of  his  that 
we  have;  and  quite  possible  that  we  have  it 
only  in  a  revised  state.  Such  merit  as  there 
is  in  the  play  lies  almost  wholly  in  individual 
lines  and  passages,  which  stand  out  from  a 
confused  and  rather  hideous  mingle  of  tragic 
bombast  and  strained  farce.  The  dumb-show 
and  choruses  between  the  acts  are  not  less 
immature  than  the  horrors  in  action  by  which 
we  can  imagine  Middleton  to  be  trying  to 
force  himself  to  be  tragic.  I  can  see  no  trace 
of  Rowley  anywhere  in  the  play,  least  of  all  in 
the  comic  scenes,  which  have  distinct  traces 
of  the  manner  of  Middleton.  The  whole 
play  seems  to  me  the  premature  attempt  of  a 
man,  not  naturally  equipped  for  tragic  or 
romantic  writing,  to  do  the  tragic  comedy 
then  in  fashion;  and  his  attempt  was  probably 


218    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

continued  in  the  plays,  now  lost,  at  which 
we  know  Middleton  was  working  in  1602: 
Caesar's  Fall,  with  Munday,  Drayton,  and 
Webster;  The  Two  Harpies,  with  the  same  and 
Dekker;  and  The  Chester  Tragedy.  In  Blurt, 
Master  Constable,  which  belongs  to  the  same 
year  and  is  the  first  of  his  published  plays,  we 
see  him  recovering  himself  after  this  false 
start,  and  setting  off  spiritedly  on  the  comedies 
of  intrigue  which  were  to  form  the  first  division 
of  his  work.  The  prose  has  become  alive, 
and  swift  of  foot;  the  dialogue  slips  easily 
from  prose  into  verse  and  back  again;  the 
action,  and  these  unchastened  tongues,  gallop. 
Middleton  has  found  a  subject-matter  and  a 
technique;  and  to  these  he  will  be  almost 
wholly  faithful  for  the  long  first  half  of  his 
career,  the  fifteen  years  of  comedy. 

That  is,  unless  we  are  to  believe,  on  the 
strength  of  a  dubious  allusion,  that  Middleton, 
before  writing  The  Mayor  of  Queenborough, 
wrote  The  Old  Land,  or  part  of  it,  and  that 
Massinger  and  Rowley,  who  would  both  have 
been  too  young  to  have  collaborated  with 
him  at  the  time,  added  large  portions  later. 
Of  Massinger,  there  is  no  trace  in  the  play, 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         219 

but  of  Rowley  the  traces  are  unmistakable, 
not  so  much  in  the  actual  writing  of  the  comic 
parts  as  in  the  whole  conception  of  the  main 
scenes  and  characters.  The  play  is  in  a  sense 
the  preparation  for  A  Fair  Quarrel  of  1617, 
in  which  both  wrote  together,  and  it  seems  to 
mark  the  beginning  of  the  collaboration,  and 
of  that  new  influence  which  came  into  Middle- 
ton's  work  with  Rowley.  It  is  in  these  two 
plays  that  we  find,  for  the  first  time,  that 
" exquisiteness  of  moral  sensibility"  which 
Lamb  divined  in  one  and  that  "delicacy  of  per- 
ception in  matters  of  right  and  wrong"  which 
he  distinguished  in  the  other. 

From  1602,  the  date  of  Blurt,  Master  Con- 
stable, to  1617,  the  date  of  A  Fair  Quarrel, 
almost  the  whole  of  Middleton's  work  is  in 
farcical  comedy,  at  once  realistic  and  satirical. 
It  is  to  the  early  part  of  this  period  that  a  play 
is  generally  attributed  whose  authorship  no 
one  would  have  troubled  to  enquire  into  if 
it  had  not  been  published  as  "  written  by 
W.  S."  The  Puritan  is  still  printed  among 
what  are  called  the  "doubtful  plays  "  of  Shake- 
speare. When  Swinburne  says  that  it  is 
"much  more  like  Rowley's  than  like  Middle- 


220    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

ton's  worst  work"  he  is,  I  think,  strictly  true, 
but  is  not  to  be  taken  to  mean  that  Rowley 
wrote  it.  There  is  nothing  sufficiently  in- 
dividual in  the  play  to  give  so  much  as  a  solid 
starting-point  for  conjecture.  Compare  it 
with  the  worst  of  Middleton's  comedies,  The 
Family  of  Love,  and  in  that  tedious  satire 
there  is  at  least  some  intention,  though  that 
intention  is  now  mainly  lost  to  us;  it  is  the 
realist's  attempt  to  show  up  the  dulness  of  dull 
people  by  making  them  speak  and  act  no  more 
nimbly  than  was  natural  to  them.  The  parody 
there  is,  apparently,  so  close  that  we  can 
mistake  it  for  the  original.  But  the  diction, 
though  creeping,  is  not  ignoble;  it  is  like  the 
fumbling  of  a  man  on  an  instrument  which 
he  is  on  the  way  to  master.  The  fumbler 
of  The  Puritan  will  get  no  further. 

In  1604  Middleton  had  some  share  in  The 
Honest  Whore  of  Dekker,  but  no  very  consider- 
able one,  so  far  as  his  manner  can  be  traced 
there,  and,  seven  years  later,  we  find  him 
collaborating  again  with  Dekker  hi  The  Roaring 
Girl,  though  here,  also,  what  is  finest  in  the 
play  seems  to  be  Dekker's.  Apart  from  these 
two  divergences,  and  an  occasional  masque 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         221 

or  pageant,  done  to  order,  his  course  is  direct, 
and  his  main  concern,  as  he  defines  it  later, 
in  commending  The  World  tost  at  Tennis  to  the 
reader  and  understander,  is  to  be  "neither  too 
bitterly  taxing,  nor  too  soothingly  telling,  the 
world's  broad  abuses."  In  a  prefatory  address 
to  the  "comic  play-readers"  of  The  Roaring 
Girl,  he  is  still  more  explicit.  "The  fashion," 
he  says, 

of  play-making  I  can  properly  compare  to  nothing  so  nat- 
urally as  the  alteration  in  apparel;  for  in  the  time  of  the 
great  crop-doublet,  your  huge  bombasted  plays,  quilted 
with  mighty  words  to  lean  purpose,  was  only  then  in 
fashion:  and  as  the  doublet  fell,  neater  inventions  began 
to  set  up.  Now,  in  the  time  of  spruceness,  our  plays  follow 
the  niceness  of  our  garments;  single  plots,  quaint  conceits, 
lecherous  jests,  drest  up  in  hanging  sleeves:  and  those 
are  fit  for  the  times  and  the  termers.  Such  a  kind  of  light- 
colour  summer  stuff,  mingled  with  divers  colours,  you 
shall  find  this  published  comedy. 

The  early  comedy  of  Middleton  is  as  light, 
rancid,  and  entertaining  as  anything  in  the 
Elizabethan  drama.  It  is  irresponsible  rather 
than  immoral,  and  does  not  exactly  recom- 
mend or  approve  of  the  trickeries  and  de- 
baucheries which  it  represents  in  a  life-like 
way,  under  such  improbable  conditions.  Yet 


222    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

the  writer  is  no  more  careful  of  his  ethical  than 
of  his  other  probabilities,  and  takes  little 
trouble  to  keep  up  any  consistency  in  the 
minds  or  morals  of  his  agile  puppets.  His 
ami  is  at  effect,  and  he  rarely  fails  in  his  ami. 
Even  when  we  do  not  believe  hi  the  persons, 
and  do  not  care  about  the  upshot  of  the  action, 
we  are  almost  constantly  enlivened,  and, 
willingly,  or  unwillingly,  carried  along.  Mid- 
dleton  allows  us  to  hate  or  despise,  but  not  to 
disregard  him. 

The  main  material  of  his  comedy  is  in  the 
acts  and  moods  of  the  human  animal.  Sex 
dominates  the  whole  Elizabethan  drama,  but 
here  it  is  not  a  terror,  a  fascination,  or  a  sin, 
but  an  occupation.  A  passage  in  The  Phoenix 
might  be  applied  to  almost  any  of  these  plays: 

What  monstrous  days  are  these! 
Not  only  to  be  vicious  most  men  study, 
But  in  it  to  be  ugly;  strive  to  exceed 
Each  other  in  the  most  deformed  deed. 

Is  it  a  merit  in  Middleton  that  he  shows  us 
vice  always  as  an  ugly  thing,  even  when  he 
seems  to  take  pleasure  in  it,  and  to  forget  to 
condemn  it?  The  "  beggarly  fools  and  swarm- 
ing knaves,"  to  use  a  phrase  of  his  own,  who 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         223 

traffick  in  souls,  bodies,  and  possessions 
throughout  these  travesties,  confusions  and 
"familiar  accidents  which  happen  in  town," 
are  set  a-gog  by  no  moralist,  but  by  so  keen 
and  unprejudiced  an  observer  of  the  human 
comedy  that,  for  the  most  part,  they  come 
out  in  their  naked  colours,  almost  against 
his  intention.  And,  as  he  lets  vice  peep 
through  all  cloaks  and  stand  self-condemned, 
so  he  shows  us  a  certain  hardly-conscious 
"soul  of  goodness  in  things  evil."  There  is  true 
and  good  human  feeling  in  some  of  the  most 
shameless  scenes  of  Your  Five  Gallants,  where 
a  whole  lost  and  despised  world  of  "strange 
devils  and  pretty  damnable  affections"  is 
stirred  up  into  plausible  action.  They  take 
place  where  there  is  "violet  air,  curious  garden, 
quaint  walks,  fantastical  arbours,  three  back- 
doors, and  a  coach-gate,"  in  a  "music-school" 
or  "Maison  Tellier"  of  the  period,  and  the  very 
names  of  the  characters  are  hardly  quotable. 
The  humanity  is  accidental,  and  comes  from 
absolute  knowledge  of  a  world  where  "every 
part  shoots  up  daily  into  new  subtlety;  the 
very  spider  weaves  her  cauls  with  more  art 
and  cunning  to  entrap  the  fly."  Middleton, 


224    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

though  the  spider  preoccupies  him,  and  lends 
him  a  web  for  spinning,  puts  the  fly  too  into 
the  pattern. 

If  we  seek  a  reason  for  the  almost  universal 
choice  of  brothels  and  taverns  as  the  scenes 
of  Elizabethan  comedy,  we  shall  find  it 
partly  in  a  theory,  accepted  from  the  I^atin 
and  Italian  drama,  that  this  was  the  proper 
province  of  the  comic  muse.  The  accidents 
of  a  player's  or  professional  writer's  life  gave 
opportunities  for  knowledge  of  just  that  world 
into  which  he  was  naturally  thrust.  The 
Elizabethan  audience  was  accustomed  from  the 
first  to  the  two  extremes  of  novel  tragedy  and 
brutal  comedy.  That  violent  contrast  ap- 
pealed to  a  taste  always  hungering  and  thirst- 
ing for  strong  meat  and  strong  drink.  The 
puritan  limits  had  not  yet  fixed  themselves; 
they  were  but  divined  as  a  thing  one  could  be 
aware  of  and  mock  at.  At  the  same  time,  the 
stage  was  not  exactly  respected;  it  had  no 
character  to  keep  up.  Thus,  the  dramatist, 
being  as  free  as  the  modern  French  caricaturist 
to  make  his  appeal  in  the  most  direct  way, 
to  the  animal  through  the  animal,  had  no 
hesitation  in  using  the  gross  material  at  hand 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         225 

grossly.  Tn  the  more  serious  men,  we  get  no 
more  than  painful  attempts  to  please  a  taste 
which  Middleton  must  have  found  it  easy 
to  gratify.  He  was  no  dreamer,  he  was  not  a 
poet  in  the  instinctive  irrepressible  sense  in 
which  Dekker,  for  instance,  was  a  poet,  and 
he  shared  a  love  which  was  common  to  Dekker 
and  to  others  at  that  time,  for  mean  adventures 
of  loose  people  in  cities,  knaves  who  gulled 
and  fools  who  were  gulled,  sharpers,  highway- 
men, and,  outside  cities,  gipsies.  His  eyes 
were  open  upon  every  folly  of  fashion  or  freak 
of  religion;  he  knew  his  law  and  his  lawyers, 
and  he  saw  their  capacities  for  entertainment; 
he  had  all  the  terms  of  cant  and  astrology  at 
his  finger's  ends,  and  realised  the  savour  of 
the  oddities  of  popular  speech.  It  was  easy 
to  him  to  set  these  people  talking  as  they  would 
really  talk,  or  with  just  that  heightening  which 
his  sense  of  pungent  and  appropriate  words 
gave  him;  and  he  could  set  scene  after  scene 
galloping  across  the  stage,  not  taking  more 
trouble  than  his  public  demanded  in  making 
his  plots  consistent  or  probable,  so  long  as 
they  went  at  full  speed  along  familiar  ways; 
not  caring,  most  of  the  time,  to  create  individ- 


226    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

ual  characters,  but  relying  upon  the  effect 
of  vividly  realised  moods,  of  people  very  much 
alive  for  a  given  moment.  A  character  so 
ripely  developed  as  Sir  Bounteous  Progress  in 
A  Mad  World,  my  Masters  is  rare  among  these 
nimble  types  and  instances  of  fixed  follies 
or  ascertained  "humours." 

What  we  remember  Middleton's  comedies 
for  is  not  their  separate  characters  but  their 
brace  of  gallants,  their  " school"  of  wantons, 
their  clash  of  cozener  with  cozener,  their 
ingenuities  of  deceit,  the  "heat  of  fury"  of  their 
entangled  action.  We  remember  single  scenes, 
of  a  marvellous  and  sometimes  cruelly  comic 
reality,  like  the  death-bed  of  Dampit  the 
drunkard  in  A  Trick  to  catch  the  Old  One, 
or  that  other  death-scene  in  A  Chaste  Maid  in 
Cheapside,  where  an  old  sinner  makes  his  last 
end  in  grotesque  and  frightened  repentance, 
while  the  man  and  woman  whom  he  may  be 
supposed  to  have  most  wronged  remember 
the  fact  for  the  first  time  as  they  foresee  the 
cutting  short  of  then-  shameful  revenue.  Here, 
as  often  hi  Middleton,  irony  comes  out  of  the 
mere  faithfulness  with  which  he  sets  before  us 
exactly  what  would  happen  at  such  a  moment 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY        227 

as  that.  His  plays  are  full  of  these  paradoxes 
of  event,  which  it  is  the  custom  to  call  unpleas- 
ant, and  which,  sometimes,  certainly  are 
unpleasant  when  the  playwright  seems  to  be 
unaware  that  some  hideous  piece  of  villany 
is  being  set  to  rights  (so  far  as  relative  justice 
is  concerned)  by  a  trick  of  virtue  not  less 
unpardonable. 

If  Bullen  is  right  in  his  conjecture  that  The 
Widow  (a  play  published  in  1652  as  a  "lively 
piece,  drawn  by  the  art  of  Jonson,  Fletcher, 
and  Middleton")  belongs  to  about  this  date, 
revised  later,  it  would,  for  Middleton,  be 
curiously  innocent  in  the  midst  of  all  its  vivid 
banter  and  thieves'  foolery.  In  how  many 
plays  of  this  period  could  the  characters  say 
to  one  another  at  the  close,  without  irony, 
"Be  good"  and  "Be  honest, "as  two  of  the  char- 
acters do  here?  Jonson  is  for  nothing  in  it, 
unless  as  a  passing  influence;  but  I  do  not  see 
why  Fletcher  might  not  have  been  the  reviser, 
as  well  as  the  writer  of  one  or  two  of  the  songs. 
But  the  main  part,  unmistakably,  is  Middle- 
ton's,  and  it  is,  perhaps,  in  this  play  that  the 
romantic  element  first  shows  itself  among  the 
incidents  and  actualities  of  knavery. 


228    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

It  took  Middleton  a  long  time  to  realise 
that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  honour,  even  in 
transactions  which  he  felt  it  his  business  to 
watch  from  the  knaves'  point  of  view,  because 
that  was  the  one  which  would  best  entertain 
his  audience.  He  chose  stories,  persons  and 
surroundings  for  their  immediate  stage  effect, 
making  them  as  real  and  amusing  as  he  could, 
scene  by  scene;  and  it  was  so  rarely  that  it 
occurred  to  him  to  temper  the  trickeries  of 
his  plots  by  some  honest  motive  that  we  find 
him  confusing  moral  values  without  due  indi- 
cation of  being  aware  of  it.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  he  wrote  hastily,  and  with  ease, 
and  a  man  who  writes  hastily  and  with  ease 
for  the  stage  will  readily  sacrifice  a  point  of 
conscience  .to  a  theatrical  solution.  Once, 
in  The  Roaring  Girl,  some  frank  and  convincing 
honesty  comes  into  the  bad  company,  and  has 
the  best  of  it  there.  But  how  much  of  Middle- 
ton  is  to  be  found  in  what  gives  a  pleasant 
quality  to  that  one  play,  not  less  astir  than  the 
others  with  his  usual  crew  and  company? 

Though  the  work  of  each  overlaps  occasion- 
ally, there  can  be  little  doubt  of  the  main  shares 
of  Middleton  and  Dekker  in  The  Roaring  Girl. 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         229 

It  is,  undoubtedly,  Dekker  who  has  created, 
and  mainly  set  in  action,  the  good  honest 
hoyden  who  masquerades  through  the  play 
in  the  name  of  Moll  Cutpurse,  a  creature  of 
another  colour,  if  we  can  believe  contemporary 
records.  "Worse  things  I  must  needs  confess," 
says  Middleton  in  his  preface  "to  the  comic 
play-readers,"  "the  world  has  taxed  her  for 
than  has  been  written  of  her;  but  'tis  the 
excellency  of  a  writer  to  leave  things  better 
than  they  are."  To  paint  a  woman  who 
asks  justly, 

must  you  have 
A  black  ill  name  because  ill  things  you  know? 

and  to  show  her  talking  thieves'  slang  among 
thieves  with  an  easy  familiarity,  and  yet  going 
through  this  evil  company  like  a  knight- 
errant,  helping  honest  lovers  and  pulling 
"down  knaves,  was  a  task  more  within  the 
power  of  Dekker  than  of  Middleton,  whose 
metre  and  manner  come  and  go  with  the  galli- 
pots and  rattling  roguish  shop-keepers  who  cry 
their  wares  and  complicate  their  private  doings 
through  the  whole  underplot  of  the  play. 
But  little  of  the  really  significant  speech  of 


230    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

Moll  can  be  attributed  to  Middleton,  and, 
though  much  of  the  business  and  movement  of 
the  play  is  his,  and  much  of  the  "manners," 
Dekker,  too,  is  responsible  for  the  fifth  act  with 
its  almost  too  liberal  local  colour  of  "canting." 
The  play  is  untidy,  but  very  much  alive; 
and  Dekker  seems  to  bring  fresh  ah-  into  musty 
rooms,  not  only  by  the  presence  of  this  vital 
woman,  not  to  be  paralleled  elsewhere  in 
Middleton's  comedies,  but  by  a  way  of  writing 
which  is  more  a  poet's  way  than  his.  The  very 
sound  of  the  lines  has  a  lilt  and  spring  in  them, 
as  hi  a  casual  image  of  this  kind: 

my  thoughts  must  run, 
As  a  horse  runs  that's  blind,  round  in  a  mill, 
Out  every  step,  yet  keeping  one  path  still. 

Middleton's  verse,  for  all  its  sinews,  could  not 
have  given  just  that  turn  to  a  line;  and  Dekker 
brings  with  him  that  beauty  which  was 
always  a  natural  accident  in  his  speech. 

The  prose  of  Middleton,  as  we  see  it  in  the 
comedies,  used  more  often  than  verse,  but 
dropping  easily  into  and  out  of  verse,  is  a  pun- 
gent, fluent,  very  natural  and  speakable  prose. 
It  has  lightness,  and  yet  is  not  empty,  is  often 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         231 

witty  without  going  unduly  beyond  the  prob- 
abilities of  talk;  only  at  times,  as  in  The 
Family  of  Love,  does  it  become  pedantic ;  and 
it  rarely  loses  a  certain  deftness  even  when 
it  drops  into  beastliness.  Touches  of  the 
edged  speech  of  the  period,  which  shines  and 
strikes,  are  not  wanting.  "Bright  Helena  of 
this  house,  would  thy  Troy  were  a-fire,  for  I 
am  a-cold,"  says  someone,  on  no  particular 
occasion.  The  prose  goes  at  a  great  rate,  and 
carries  you  with  it,  while  you  travel  slowly 
with  Rowley,  as  often  as  he  takes  Middleton's 
place.  And  the  verse  is  hardly  less  swift, 
galloping  often  on  more  feet  than  the  measure 
demands,  but  rarely  jarring  the  measure.  In 
some  of  the  plays,  Middleton  takes  no  care  to 
modulate  from  prose  into  verse,  but  jumps 
forward  and  backward  with  little  need,  barely 
lifting  the  verse  above  the  measure  of  the  prose. 
Gradually  the  quality  and  adaptability  of  the 
verse  improve;  developing  directly  out  of  the 
prose  it  becomes  not  less  flexible.  And  we 
find  him  cultivating  with  increasing  skill  what 
had  always  been  a  homely  colloquial  tendency, 
dealing  in  culinary  and  haberdashery  similes, 
more  at  home  with  a  dish  or  dress  than  with 


232    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

the  moon,  and  able  to  set  dumb  things  into 
gesture,  thus: 

Troth,  you  speak  wondrous  well  for  your  old  house  here; 
'Twill  shortly  fall  down  at  your  feet  to  thank  you, 
Or  stoop,  when  you  go  to  bed,  like  a  good  child, 
To  ask  your  blessing. 

Verse,  to  Middleton,  is  a  native  idiom;  he 
speaks  in  it  naturally,  bending  it  as  he  pleases, 
to  any  shade  of  meaning,  filling  it  with  stuff 
alien  to  poetry  and  yet  keeping  its  good  metre. 
He  does  not  write  for  the  sake  of  the  verse, 
and  only  a  native  honesty  of  ear  keeps  him 
from  dropping  clean  out  of  it,  without  knowing, 
into  prose.  Thus,  he  has  few  fine  passages; 
yet  a  few  of  them  he  has,  where  imagination 
has  fastened  upon  him,  and  dictated  his 
words.  His  lines  run  often,  in  his  later  work, 
to  fourteen  syllables,  yet  their  feet  slide  easily 
within  the  measure.  As  he  lets  his  lines  grow 
longer,  so  he  allows  himself  longer  speeches, 
because  he  knows  that  he  can  keep  the  ear 
awake  and  following  them.  And,  by  the 
time  of  The  Changeling  the  versification  has 
become  graver,  with  a  new  thrill  in  it,  through 
which  passion,  and  not  only  the  mind's 
energies,  can  now  speak.  Was  it  Rowley  who 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         233 

first  showed  Middleton  the  possibility  of  that 
passionate  note,  by  which  drama  becomes  not 
only  drama  but  poetry? 

If,  as  I  have  conjectured,  The  Old  Law  leads 
the  way  from  the  farcical  comedies  to  the  tragic 
comedies  like  A  Fair  Quarrel,  it  is  in  that  play 
that  the  influence  of  Rowley  may  be  first  dis- 
tinguished; and  it  is  impossible  not  to  connect 
it  with  the  change  which  came  about  in  the 
work  of  Middleton,  a  change  from  work 
almost  wholly  comic,  and  of  the  city  kind, 
to  a  work  partly  tragic  and  partly  comic  in  a 
higher  and  more  romantic  sense.  We  find 
Rowley's  name  beside  Middleton's  on  the  title- 
pages  of  The  Old  Law,  A  Fair  Quarrel,  The 
World  tost  at  Tennis,  The  Spanish  Gipsy, 
and  The  Changeling',  most,  that  is,  of  the  finest 
of  Middleton's  later  work,  with  only  the  two 
exceptions  of  Women  beware  Women  and  A 
Game  at  Chess.  The  manner  and  measure 
of  this  collaboration  is  not  so  easy  to  discover 
as  it  may  at  first  sight  appear.  It  is  his  faults 
that  are  most  obvious  in  Rowley,  his  dissonant 
verse,  his  over-strained  speech,  his  incapacity 
for  construction,  something  jagged  and  uneven 
in  his  whole  work;  and  it  is  only  gradually 


234    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

that  people  are  beginning  to  realise  that  these 
defects  are  not  the  essential  part  of  him. 
His  plays  have  had  the  not  unnatural  mis- 
fortune to  be  chaotically  printed,  verse  and 
prose  never  clearly  distinguished  from  one 
another;  and  some  of  them  are  only  to  be  found 
in  a  few  rare  copies  of  the  original  editions. 
It  is  difficult  to  be  certain  of  his  exact  share 
in  many  plays  to  which  his  name  is,  rightly 
or  wrongly,  appended.  One  thing  is  certain; 
that  the  plays  written  by  Rowley  and  Middle- 
ton  together  are  finer  than  any  of  the  plays 
written  by  either  separately.  And  it  is  almost 
equally  certain  that  Rowley's  share  in  the  work 
was  not  confined  to  those  scenes  or  passages  in 
which  his  actual  hand  can  be  distinguished 
in  the  versification,  but  that  there  was  a  fur- 
ther and  closer  collaboration  of  a  kind  which  no 
tests  of  style  or  versification  can  ever  dis- 
entangle. We  have  seen  Middleton  working 
alone,  and,  to  a  slight  extent,  with  Dekker; 
we  shall  see  him,  at  the  end  of  his  career, 
again  working  alone.  We  have  now  to  con- 
sider what  can  be  found  out  about  Rowley,  in 
such  work  as  he  did  by  himself  or  in  company 
with  others,  before  we  can  hope  to  arrive  at 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         233 

any  conclusion  in  regard  to  the  work  in  which 
he  is  the  companion  of  Middleton. 

The  plays  published  under  Rowley's  name 
or  initials  are:  A  New  Wonder,  a  Woman  never 
Vexed,  1632;  All's  Lost  by  Lust,  1633;  A 
Match  at  Midnight,  1633;  and  A  Shoemaker  a 
Gentleman,  1638.  Of  these  A  Match  at  Mid- 
night has  little  resemblance  with  any  of  his 
known  work,  while  it  has  a  close  resemblance 
with  the  early  work  of  Middleton.  It  goes 
with  something  of  the  rapidity  of  the  wild 
and  whirling  comedies  of  about  the  time  of 
Your  Five  Gallants,  but  would  add  more  credit 
to  an  imitator  than  to  Middleton.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  Rowley  may  in  his  capacity  of  actor 
have  made  slight  changes  for  acting  purposes, 
which  would  account  for  the  use  of  his  initials. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  he  had  even 
so  much  to  do  with  Fortune  by  Land  and  Sea, 
published,  in  1655,  as  by  Heywood  and  Row- 
ley, or  with  The  Thracian  Wonder,  attributed 
to  Webster  and  Rowley  by  Kirkman  in 
1661.  There  is  little  more  probability  in 
the  same  editor's  attribution  to  the  same 
writers  of  A  Cure  for  a  Cuckold,  which  he 
published  in  the  same  year.  Kirkman's  word 


236    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

is  valueless  as  evidence,  and  there  is  nothing  in 
the  play  of  which  we  can  say  with  much  prob- 
ability that  it  is  by  either  Webster  or  Rowley. 
Only  the  slow  and  thoughtful  quality  of  some 
of  the  verse  gives  any  real  suggestion  of  Web- 
ster; and  verse  of  Webster's  kind  is  quite 
possible  to  imitate.  The  drearily  comic  prose 
is  done  after  the  pattern  of  the  tune,  and  there 
is  nothing  in  it  distinguishable  from  similar 
hack-work,  whether  done  by  Rowley  or  by 
others  for  the  day's  wage. 

In  The  Travels  of  the  Three  English  Brothers, 
published  in  1607,  with  a  dedication  signed 
"John  Day,  William  Rowley,  George  Wilkins," 
it  is  easy,  but  not  very  profitable,  to  trace  the 
share  of  Rowley.  He  probably  put  in  Zaripha, 
the  Shylock  of  the  play,  and  wrote  some  of  the 
more  pompous  blank  verse  and  of  the  coarser 
verbal  fooling.  In  The  Maid  in  the  Mill, 
licensed  to  Fletcher  and  Rowley  29  August, 
1623,  and  played  at  the  Globe  with  Rowley 
as  one  of  the  actors,  his  share  and  Fletcher's 
are  quite  distinct,  and  they  are  divided 
no  doubt,  equally.  Rowley's  verse,  by  the 
side  of  the  winged  verse  of  Fletcher,  seems 
somewhat  crabbed  and  abstract,  and  the 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         237 

prose  (interspersed  with  Fletcher's  songs) 
somewhat  cold  and  laboured.  In  The  Witch 
of  Edmonton,  published  in  1658  as  "a  Tragi- 
Comedy  by  divers  well-esteemed  poets,  William 
Rowley,  Thomas  Dekker,  John  Ford,  etc.," 
where  Dekker  and  Ford  are  both  equally 
evident,  in  their  direction  of  the  two  main 
currents,  the  share  of  Rowley  is  difficult  to 
make  out,  and  could  hardly  have  been  con- 
siderable. There  remains  The  Birth  of  Merlin 
which  was  published  in  1662  as  by  Shakespeare 
and  Rowley.  Langbaine  tells  us  that  "William 
Rowley  was  not  only  beloved  by  those  great 
men,  Shakespeare,  Fletcher,  and  Jonson,  but 
likewise  writ,  with  the  former,  The  Birth  of 
Merlin."  The  share  of  Shakespeare  is  not 
now  in  need  of  discussion;  the  play  is  crude 
and  lumpish;  it  is  stilted  and  monotonous  in 
the  verse,  gross  and  tame  in  the  prose.  It 
would  be  pleasant  to  think  that  Rowley  had 
no  more  to  do  with  it  than  Shakespeare;  but 
it  is  difficult  to  be  positive  in  the  matter  after 
reading  A  Shoemaker  a  Gentleman. 

This  incongruous  and  incoherent  piece  is  a 
tragic  farce,  which  has  never  been  reprinted 
from  the  execrable  first  edition  of  1638,  where 


238    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

the  printer,  in  his  address  to  "the  honest  and 
high-spirited  gentlemen  of  the  never  decaying 
art,  called  the  gentle  craft,"  admits  with  some 
honesty:  "I  know  it  may  come  short  of  that 
accurateness  both  in  plot  and  style  that  this 
witty  age  doth  with  greater  curiosity  require," 
yet  excuses  it,  on  the  ground  "  that  as  plays 
were  then,  some  twenty  years  ago,  it  was  in 
the  fashion."  It  is  a  sad  jumble  of  cobblers, 
kings,  "  a  wise  virgin  hi  Wales,"  and  a  Juliet's 
nurse;  at  one  moment  "  an  angel  ascends  out 
of  the  well  and  after  descends  again,  "at[another 
there  is  drinking  of  blood,  and  we  hear  in  detail 
of  tortures  endured  in  war;  the  language  varies 
from  "  Moulting  tyrant,  stop  thy  scandalous 
breath,"  used  by  quarreling  kings,  to  "  Clap- 
perdudgeon"  and  "  Knipperdolin,"  flung  as 
pet  names  by  the  cobbler  at  his  wife.  The  few 
good  lines  which  we  come  across  at  rare  inter- 
vals are  almost  cruelly  wasted;  the  farce  which 
submerges  them  is  a  mere  desperate  attempt 
at  comic  realism. 

On  the  title-page  of  A  New  Wonder,  Rowley 
is  described  as  "one  of  his  Majesty's  Servants"; 
he  is  mentioned  among  the  principal  actors  in 
The  Maid  in  the  Mill;  in  The  Inner-Temple 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         239 

Masque  he  played  Plumporridge ;  and,  in  the 
list  of  persons  in  All's  Lost  by  Lust,  we  are 
told  that  Jaques,  "  a  simple  clownish  gentle- 
man," was  "personated  by  the  poet."  In  the 
plays  which  he  wrote  in  collaboration  with 
Middleton,  his  hand  has  been  most  generally 
traced  in  the  comic  underplots,  and  sometimes 
as  a  disturbing  element  there,  working  for 
hardly  more  than  the  ears  of  the  groundlings. 
In  the  low  peasant's  humour,  earthy  and 
almost  animal,  which  he  takes  much  trouble 
over  in  all  these  plays,  sometimes  making 
it  really  droll,  always  making  it  emphatic  and 
telling,  there  seems  to  have  been  something 
which  he  really  cared  to  do,  perhaps  because 
it  was  what  he  could  represent  best  on  the 
stage.  In  the  two  chief  plays  which  he  wrote 
by  himself  he  wove  the  comic  prose  not  in- 
effectively into  the  more  serious  substance, 
but  not  only  in  A  Shoemaker  a  Gentleman,  but 
in  most  of  the  work  done  with  Middleton,  it 
stands  out  in  sharp  contrast.  And  this  is 
the  more  curious,  as  we  shall  find  unmis- 
takable signs  of  a  very  different  kind  of 
influence  exercised  by  him  upon  precisely 
that  serious  substance. 


240    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

For  it  is  not  as  a  comic  poet  that  Rowley 
is  most  himself,  or  most  admirable.  Of  his 
two  remaining  plays,  one  is  a  heroic  tragedy 
and  the  other  a  pathetic  domestic  comedy, 
and  we  find  in  both,  very  differently  exhibited, 
the  same  qualities  of  sincerity  and  nobility, 
often  turning  to  uncouthness  or  exaggeration, 
but  never,  as  hi  Middleton,  losing  the  moral 
sense,  the  honesty  of  insight.  The  action  in 
each  is  strained  beyond  probability,  and  in 
one  becomes  barbarous,  in  the  other  artificial; 
the  verse  follows  the  action,  and  halts,  not  only 
through  the  treasons  of  a  more  than  usually 
treacherous  printer.  Yet,  as  the  verse  is  but 
an  emphasis  upon  profoundly  felt  speech, 
so  the  action  rests  always  on  a  strong  human 
foundation. 

In  All's  Lost  by  Lust  (which  deals  with  a 
subject  made  more  famous  by  Landor  in 
Count  Julian)  Rowley  shows  himself  a  poet 
by  his  comprehension  of  great  passions,  his 
sympathy  with  high  moods,  and  by  a  sheer 
and  naked  speech,  which  can  grasp  filth  or 
heroism  in  an  equal  grip.  He  has  no  measure, 
though  sometimes  constraint;  no  subtlety, 
though  he  will  set  consciences  or  clowns 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         241 

arguing  in  terms  of  strange  pedantry;  no 
sentiment,  though  he  has  all  the  violences  of 
direct  emotion;  and  he  says  what  he  wants 
to  say  and  then  stops.  He  has  no  ease  or 
grace,  and  often  labours  to  give  point  to  his 
humour  and  weight  to  his  serious  utterances. 
The  kind  of  verse  that  characterises  him  at 
his  best  is: 

Thy  soul  is  a  hired  lackey  towards  hell, 
and  he  can  sharpen  it  thus: 

Time's  ancient  bawd,  opportunity, 
Attends  us  now,  and  yet  our  flaming  blood 
Will  scarce  give  leave  to  opportunity. 

Often  he  will  go  beyond  the  bounds  of  natural 
speech,  not  on  a  carrying  imagination,  but 
under  the  dragging  weight  of  an  emphasis 
which  eloquence  can  do  better  without.  In 
some  of  Blake's  drawings  of  naked  men  with 
prodigious  muscles,  sweeping  beards,  and 
frantic  eyes,  the  intense  imitation  of  emotion 
has  gone  further  than  nature  can  lend  help  to. 
Just  so  does  some  of  the  tragic  speech  in  Rowley 
falter  through  defects  of  mere  force.  "  Rough 
Rowley,  handling  song  with  Esau's  hand," 
as  Swinburne  has  called  him  in  a  significant 


242    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

line,  sets  himself  to  construct  imagery,  and  does 
it,  sometimes  with  splendour,  but  a  splendour 
prolonged  to  extinction.  Thus  he  will  develop 
a  figure  after  this  manner: 

We'll  make  so  high  to  quench  their  silver  moons 
And  on  their  carcases  an  isthmus  make 
To  pass  their  straits  again  and  forage  them. 

Both  in  fun  and  earnest  he  plays  on  words, 
and  is  capable  of  writing  "  My  heart's  tri- 
angled,"  as  Donne  might  have  done,  and 
distinguishing  the  number  and  position  of  the 
points.  More  often  he  does  it  hi  this  wholly 
Elizabethan  manner: 

My  honoured  friends, 

What  we  all  thought  to  have  borne  home  in  triumph 

Must  now  be  seen  there  in  a  funeral, 

Wrecked  honour  being  chief  mourner;  here's  the  hearse 

Which  we'll  aU  follow. 

Even  his  "  virgin  martyrs,"  like  Jacinta,  who 
act  nobly,  are  sometimes  set  talking  with 
horrible  detail,  as,  like  Jacinta,  they  spit  at 
their  tormentors  and  wish 

that  my  tongue 

Were  pointed  with  a  fiery  Pyramis 
To  strike  thee  through. 

It  is  impossible  for  him  to  realise,  even  in  his 
Dionysia,  who  dies  with  some  of  the  ecstasy 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY        243 

of  Shakespeare's  Cleopatra,  that  a  woman 
can  be  lascivious  and  yet  talk  like  a  lady.  His 
men  can  say  memorable  things,  in  which  there 
is  some  of  the  passion  of  meditation,  but, 
however  well  he  knew  "  what  kind  of  thing  a 
man's  heart"  is,  he  did  not  know  how  to  give 
continually  adequate  speech  to  those  passions 
whose  habitation  there  he  was  aware  of. 

In  A  New  Wonder,  which  takes  place  in 
London,  and  shows  us  the  strange  vehement 
passions,  both  petty  and  ardent,  of  business 
men,  their  small  prides  and  large  resolutions, 
we  have  a  speech  more  easily  on  the  level 
of  the  occasion,  whether  in  this  heightened 
way: 

Then  be  not  angry,  gentle  sir, 

If  now  a  string  be  touched,  which  hath  too  long 

Sounded  so  harshly  over  all  the  city; 

I  now  would  wind  it  to  a  musical  height; 

or  whether  the  unrelenting  father  in  prison 
repels  his  son  with  the  direct  cry: 

Ha!  what  art  thou?    Call  for  the  keeper  there, 
And  thrust  him  out  of  doors  or  lock  me  up. 

Here,  as  elsewhere,  the  language  is  sometimes 
injured  by  emphasis,  yet  there  is  none  of  Mid- 
dleton's  aim  at  point  and  cleverness,  but  a 


244    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

speech  vividly  and  sometimes  grossly  natural, 
which  sticks  close  to  the  matter.  Its  comedy 
is  a  kind  of  literalness,  and  its  pathos  is,  too; 
and  both  are  crammed  with  fine  substance, 
thoughtful  humour  and  thoughtful  pity,  with 
that  simple  acceptance  and  rendering  of  things 
as  they  are  which  Lamb  noted  in  the  play  with 
much  satisfaction.  It  is  of  this  play  that  he 
says:  "tThe  old  play- writers  are  distinguished 
by  an  honest  boldness  of  exhibition,  they 
show  everything  without  being  ashamed." 
Here,  there  is  coarseness  and  there  is  clumsi- 
ness, but  there  is  no  flaw  in  the  essential  right- 
ness  and  reality  of  this  whole  contest  in  hearts, 
in  which  a  natural  human  charity  has  its  way 
with  invincible  softness. 

Now,  if  we  begin  to  look  for  the  influence  of 
Rowley  upon  Middleton,  we  shall  find  it  not 
so  much  in  the  set  scenes  of  low  comedy  which 
he  inserted  among  Middleton's  verse,  but  in 
a  new  capacity  for  the  rendering  of  great 
passions  and  a  loftiness  in  good  and  evil  which 
had  never  yet  been  found  as  an  element  in 
Middleton's  brilliant  and  showy  genius,  and 
which  hardly  survives  the  end  of  his  collabora- 
tion with  Rowley.  The  whole  range  of  sub- 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         243 

ject  suddenly  lifts,  a  new,  more  real  and  more 
romantic  world  (more  real  and  more  romantic 
because  imagination  rather  than  memory  is 
at  work)  is  seen  upon  the  stage,  and  by  some 
transformation,  which  could  hardly  have  been 
mere  natural  growth,  Middleton  finds  himself 
to  be  a  poet. 

That  Middleton  learnt  from  Rowley,  or 
did,  with  his  help,  more  than  either  of  them 
could  do  by  himself,  is  evident  for  the  first 
time  clearly  in  A.  Fair  Quarrel.  The  best 
part  of  the  actual  writing  is  not  Rowley's. 
Middleton  was  a  man  of  flexible  mind,  and  we 
find  in  him  everywhere  a  marvellous  tact  of 
matching  his  matter  and  manner.  Never,  in 
his  wild  comedies,  does  he  bring  in  false 
heroics;  he  can  keep  on  a  due  actual  level 
beyond  any  dramatist  of  his  time;  and,  when 
a  great  human  moment  comes  to  him,  and  has 
to  be  dealt  with,  he  rises  easily,  and  is  no 
less  adequate.  He  does  not  rise  of  himself, 
his  material  compels  him,  he  is  obedient  to  it, 
and,  I  cannot  but  think,  awake  to  a  fierier 
impulse  like  Rowley's.  It  is  certain  that  Row- 
ley could  not  have  written  the  two  great  Cap- 
tain Ager  scenes  as  they  stand;  but  I  am 


246    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

equally  certain  that,  with  all  his  promptness 
of  response  to  an  emotion,  Middleton  could 
not  have  begun  to  render,  at  such  a  moral 
height,  such  an  "  absolute  man,"  without  some 
spiritual  aid  or  life  from  Rowley.  When 
there,  when  started,  he  drew  his  poetry,  as  he 
was  wont  to  do,  directly  from  his  subject, 
and  the  natural  emotion  of  it;  and  made  a 
great  scene  where  a  weak  one  would  have 
been  contemptible.  Can  nature  and  poetry 
go  further  together,  poetry  hardly  distinguish- 
able from  the  direct  speech  of  nature,  so 
warmed  is  it  by  human  breath?  Captain 
Ager's  last  words  to  his  mother  shine  like  fire 
and  cut  like  steel,  and  are  mere  plain  words 
with  no  more  rhetoric  in  them  than  in  this 
line  which  strikes  straight: 

I  never  shall  have  need  of  honour  more. 

In  the  scene  of  the  duel,  when  all  this  fire  is 
out  in  the  man's  soul,  the  tamer  verses  are  not 
less  absolute  in  their  disheartened  speech: 

What  shall  be  done  in  such  a  worthless  business 

But  to  be  sorry,  and  to  be  forgiven; 

You,  sir,  to  bring  repentance,  and  I  pardon? 

That  the  writing,  in  the  two  great  scenes  of 
Captain  Ager,  is  Middleton's,  and  owes  noth- 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         247 

ing  in  form,  whatever  it  may  owe  in  substance, 
to  Rowley,  can  be  proved  beyond  doubt  by  a 
mere  reading  over  together  of  two  speeches, 
one  in  this  play,  one  in  a  play  so  wholly  and 
characteristically  Middleton's  as  A  Chaste 
Maid  in  Cheapside:  the  speech  of  Captain 
Ager  (ii.  1),  which  begins: 

Mine?  think  me  not  so  miserable, 

and  ends: 

Without  which  I'm  ten  fathoms  under  coward, 
That  now  am  ten  degrees  above  a  man, 
Which  is  but  one  of  virtue's  easiest  wonders; 

and  the  speech  of  Sir  Walter  (v.  1)  which 
begins : 

0  death!  is  this 

A  place  for  you  to  weep? 

and  ends: 

this  shows  like 

The  fruitless  sorrow  of  a  careless  mother, 
That  brings  her  son  with  dalliance  to  the  gallows, 
And  then  stands  by  and  weeps  to  see  him  suffer. 

The  difference  is  all  in  the  feeling;  there ^ is 
none  in  the  phrasing. 

But  that  difference  in  the  feeling!    There  is 
no  indication,  in  anything  which  Middleton 


248    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

has  so  far  written  by  himself,  that  he  was 
capable  of  conceiving  a  character  like  Captain 
Ager,  or  of  keeping  such  a  character  on  a 
single  level  of  high  emotion.  This  Rowley 
could  do,  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  he  was  the 
"  only  begetter"  of  what  he  left  to  Middleton 
to  develop.  It  is  Rowley  who  writes  the  dedi- 
cation, and  it  is  evident  that  he  takes  much  of 
the  credit  of  the  play  to  himself.  ''  You  see, 
sir,"  he  says,  "  I  write  as  I  speak,  and  I  speak 
as  I  am,  and  that's  excuse  enough  for  me." 
His  share  in  the  actual  writing  is,  indeed, 
almost  too  evident;  there  is  cold,  pedantic, 
sour  and  crabbed  prose,  aping  comedy,  and, 
in  the  scene  between  Jane  and  the  physician, 
a  hard,  reasoning  kind  of  serious  verse  which 
jars  singularly  on  the  rich  and  copious  verse 
of  Middleton,  in  the  finer  parts  of  the  play. 
Some  of  the  worst  of  the  mechanical  fooling 
in  prose  was  added  in  a  second  edition,  and 
(the  public  being  much  the  same  in  all  ages) 
it  was  probably  added  because  the  original 
sample  had  given  much  satisfaction  to  the 
public.  Rowley  worked  for  hire,  and  this  is 
some  of  his  hired  work. 
It  was  not  long  after  the  tune  of  A  Fair 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         249 

Quarrel  that  Middleton  and  Rowley  collabo- 
rated together  in  the  admirable  and  enter- 
taining masque,  The  World  tost  at  Tennis. 
For  the  most  part,  Middleton's  masques  are 
tame  and  tedious,  without  originality  in  the 
invention  or  lyrical  quality  in  the  songs.  In 
one  only,  The  Inner  Temple  Masque,  is  there 
any  natural  gaiety,  any  real  quaintness  or 
humour;  and,  as  we  find  Rowley's  name 
among  the  actors,  in  the  humorous  peasant 
part  of  Plumporridge,  may  it  not  be  con- 
jectured that  Rowley  had  some  share  in  the 
writing?  His  heavy  tread  is  as  distinctly 
heard  through  all  the  opening  part  of  The 
World  tost  at  Tennis,  as  Middleton's  new  voice 
is  heard  in  the  later  part.  Middleton  rarely 
wrote  a  lovelier  succession  of  cadences  than  in 
these  lines  spoken  by  Deceit  to  Simplicity: 

The  world,  sweetheart,  is  full  of  cares  and  troubles, 

No  match  for  thee;  thou  art  a  tender  thing, 

A  harmless,  quiet  thing,  a  gentle  fool, 

Fit  for  the  fellowship  of  ewes  and  rams; 

Go,  take  thine  ease  and  pipe;  give  me  the  burden, 

The  clog,  the  torment,  the  heart-break,  the  world : 

Here's  for  thee,  lamb,  a  dainty  oaten  pipe. 

And  there  is  suavity,  swiftness  and  a  quaint 
fantastic  colouring  in  the  verse  chattered 


250    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

against  hypocrites  and  puritans  by  the  Five 
Starches. 

It  was  probably  about  the  time,  when  he  was 
engaged  on  his  masques,  that  Middleton  wrote 
The  Witch,  and  this  may  well  have  been  his 
first  attempt  at  a  purely  romantic  play.  The 
versification  is  done  with  astonishing  ease, 
in  long,  loose,  rapid  lines;  and,  in  the  witches' 
songs,  there  is  not  only  a  ghastly  fancy  awake, 
but  something  nearer  to  a  fine  lyric  cadence 
than  he  ever  got  before  or  since.  It  is  through 
the  interpolation,  as  it  obviously  was,  of 
some  of  these  lines  in  the  very  imperfect  text 
of  Macbeth,  that  a  play  in  which  the  main  action 
is  almost  a  parody  of  the  romantic  drama 
has  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  one  of  Middle- 
ton's  chief  works.  The  mere  writing  through- 
out is  good,  but  the  easy  eloquent  dialogue 
covers  no  more  than  the  gaps  and  deformations 
of  the  main  outline.  The  witches  bring  a 
new  element  into  Middleton's  work,  a  wild 
fancy,  of  which  he  had  shown  hardly  a  trace; 
in  the  rest  of  the  play  he  does  but  practise 
in  the  romantic  manner.  They  stand  in  some 
dun  middle  air,  between  the  old  vile  pitiable 
crone  of  Dekker  in  The  Witch  of  Edmonton, 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY        251 

who  is  dreadfully  human,  and  the  "  crowded 
empress  of  the  nether  clefts  of  hell "  in  Macbeth, 
who  shares  no  resemblance  with  the  other 
Hecate  but  in  her  name,  and  who  is  more 
dreadful  because  she  is  not  human.  But 
Lamb  has  said  finally  all  that  need  be  said 
on  these  fundamental  differences. 

After  the  experiment  of  The  Witch,  Middle- 
ton  seems  to  have  returned  to  his  collaboration 
with  Rowley,  and  it  is  to  about  this  time  that 
we  must  assign  the  play  by  which  both  are  now 
chiefly  remembered,  the  tragedy  of  The  Change- 
ling. It  is  Rowley  who  begins  the  play,  and 
thus  introduces  and  characterises  both  Bianca 
and  De  Flores.  The  germ  of  both  is  there, 
and  the  rest  of  the  play  is  but  its  growth. 
But,  even  in  this  opening,  there  are  distinct 
though  slight  traces  of  Middleton,  as  if  the 
collaboration  had  begun  already.  Middleton 
takes  up  the  thread  in  the  second  act,  and  has 
both  hands  upon  it  in  the  third,  though  at 
the  end  of  the  great  scene  Rowley  seems  to 
snatch  the  whole  web  out  of  his  hands  and 
to  twist  it  into  an  abrupt  end.  In  all  this 
part,  mainly  written  by  Middleton,  there  is  a 
restraint  never  paralleled  elsewhere  hi  his 


252    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

work;  nowhere  else  are  words  used  with  such 
fruitful  frugality,  or  so  much  said  in  so  little. 
And  this  bareness,  this  fierce  reticence,  lead 
up,  with  a  stealthy  directness,  to  that  out- 
break of  evil  joy  when  De  Flores  cries: 

O  this  act 

Has  put  me  into  spirit! 

and  the  modest  murderess  answers  in  aston- 
ishment : 

Why,  'tis  impossible  thou  canst  be  so  wicked 

Or  shelter  such  a  cunning  cruelty 

To  make  his  death  the  murderer  of  my  honour! 

The  whole  scene  is  written  in  words  of  white 
heat ;  Middleton  has  distilled  into  it  the  essence 
of  his  own  genius  and  of  the  genius  of  Rowley; 
it  is,  in  Leigh  Hunt's  famous  and  revealing 
words  of  De  Flores,  "  at  once  tragical,  probable, 
and  poetical"  beyond  almost  any  single  scene 
in  the  Elizabethan  drama;  a  scene  unlike 
anything  in  Shakespeare,  but  comparable, 
not  as  poetry  but  as  drama  with  Shakespeare. 
And  it  is  on  the  level  of  this  great  scene  that 
the  play  ends,  in  a  splendid  horror,  and  it  is 
Rowley  who  ends  as  he  began  the  dreadful 
lives  of  De  Flores  and  of  Beatrice.  Rowley's 
underplot  and  some  of  Middleton's  inter- 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         253 

mediate  action  do  what  they  can  to  deform  a 
play  which,  but  for  them,  would  be  a  noble 
and  complete  masterpiece.  Yet  the  single 
impression  left  upon  our  minds  is  scarcely 
affected  by  them.  The  play  is  De  Flores, 
and  De  Flores  seems  to  greaten  as  he  passes 
from  one  to  the  other  of  the  two  playwrights, 
as  they  collaborate  visibly  at  his  creation. 
In  this  great  creation  is  the  first  result  and 
justification  of  Middleton  and  Rowley's  work 
in  common;  for  it  is  certain  that  De  Flores 
as  he  is  would  never  have  been  possible  to 
either  Rowley  or  Middleton. 

The  Spanish  Gipsy  is  generally  put  down 
almost  as  a  whole  to  Middleton,  and  even 
Swinburne  refuses  to  see  the  hand  of  Rowley 
in  "the  more  high-toned  passages."  I  am 
inclined  to  think  that  Rowley  wrote  a  larger 
part  of  the  play  than  Middleton,  and  not  by 
any  means  only  the  gipsy  scenes,  with  their 
jollity,  dancing  and  crabbed  ballad  singing. 
The  opening  was,  no  doubt,  actually  written 
by  Middleton,  but  it  has  a  quality  unusual 
in  his  work,  and  not  unusual  in  the  work 
of  Rowley.  It  is  as  if  Rowley  were  behind 
Middleton,  controlling  him.  Most  of  the 


254    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

prose,  both  when  it  goes  creeping  and  tedious 
with  Sancho  and  Soto,  and  when  it  over- 
flows into  doggrel  and  occasionally  savoury 
snatches  of  song,  has  Rowley's  manner  and 
substance;  but  he  is  to  be  traced,  also,  in 
the  slow  and  powerful  verse  which  ends  the 
third  act,  in  lines  like: 

This  is  the  triumph  of  a  soul  drowned  deep 
In  the  unfathomed  seas  of  matchless  sorrow, 

and  in  the  whole  attitude  and  speech  of  a  father 
who  speaks  with  the  very  accent  of  Julianus 
in  All's  Lost  by  Lust: 

Teach  me  how  I  may  now  be  just  and  cruel, 
For  henceforth  I  am  childless. 

Rowley  is  heard,  also,  through  much  of  the 
fourth  act,  though  Middleton  comes  in  un- 
mistakably towards  the  end,  and  is  the  writer 
of  the  whole  fifth  act.  The  characters  are 
distributed  between  them,  and  so  charming  a 
person  as  Constanza  is  decidedly  at  her  best 
when  she  speaks  through  Middleton.  The 
whole  play  is  not  made  very  probable,  or  meant 
to  be  so;  it  is  a  frank  romance,  with  stage 
mysteries,  some  of  them  thrilling,  like  the 
wonderful  opening  scene,  some,  mere  tricks 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         255 

of  convenience;  and  there  is  a  freshness  and 
pleasantness  about  it  which  seem  to  show 
us  Middleton  in  full  and  final  acceptance  of 
the  romantic  manner. 

Yet  it  is  difficult  to  assign  to  any  other  period 
the  comedy  of  Anything  for  a  Quiet  Life, 
printed  in  16G2,  and  so  badly  printed  that  it 
is  not  easy  to  distinguish  the  prose  from  the 
verse,  the  more  so  as  the  one  seems  to  be  set 
to  run  in  no  very  different  measures  from  the 
other.  It  seems  to  be  a  late  and  only  return 
to  the  earlier  manner  of  the  farcical  comedies 
of  city  life,  with  shop-keeping  scenes  of  the 
old  random  brilliance  and  the  old  domestic 
fooleries  and  reinstallments.  Even  more  mat- 
ter is  crammed  into  it,  even  more  hastily,  and 
there  is  the  old  fierce  vigour  of  talk.  But  in 
two  plays,  published  together  in  1657,  we 
see  what  seems  to  be  almost  the  last  mood  of 
Middleton,  after  his  collaboration  with  Rowley 
was  at  an  end,  and  the  influence  perhaps  not 
wholly  evaporated.  More  Dissemblers  besides 
Women,  which  is  characteristic  of  Middleton 
in  its  tangle  of  virtues  and  hypocrisies,  its 
masquerade  of  serious  meanings  and  humour- 
ous disguises,  is  written  in  verse  of  a  lovely 


256    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

and  eager  quality,  which  bends  with  equal 
flexibility  to  the  doings  of  "  those  dear  gipsies" 
and  to  the  good  cardinal's  concerns  of  con- 
science "  in  a  creature  that's  so  doubtful  as  a 
woman."  It  is  a  parti-coloured  thing,  and  has 
beauty  and  oddity.  But  in  Women  beware 
Women  we  find  much  of  Middleton's  finest 
and  ripest  work,  together  with  his  most  rancid 
"  comic  relief";  a  stern  and  pitiless  "  criticism 
of  life"  is  interrupted  by  foul  and  foolish 
clowning;  and  a  tragedy  of  the  finest  comic 
savour  ends  in  a  mere  heap  of  corpses,  where 

vengeance  met  vengeance 
Lake  a  set  match,  as  if  the  plagues  of  sin 
Had  been  agreed  to  meet  here  all  together. 

"I've  lost  myself  in  this  quite"  Middleton 
might  say  with  the  duke,  and  rarely  has  better 
material  been  more  callously  left  to  spoil. 
There  is  no  finer  comedy  of  its  kind  in  the  whole 
of  Elizabethan  drama  than  the  scene  between 
Livia,  Bianca  and  the  widow;  and  the  kind  is  a 
rare,  bitter  and  partly  tragic  one.  The  human 
casuistry  is  flawless;  the  irony  is  an  illumina- 
tion rather  than  a  correction  of  reality.  And 
these  vile  people  are  alive,  and  the  vices  in 
them  work  with  a  bewildering  and  convincing 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         257 

certainty.  The  technique  of  such  scenes  aa 
that  in  which  husband  and  wife  flaunt  their 
new  finery  at  each  other  is  not  less  than 
astonishing.  All  the  meaner  passions  are 
seen  in  probable  action,  speaking  without 
emphasis,  in  a  language  never  too  far  from 
daily  speech  for  the  complete  illusion  of  reality. 
There  is  not  even  the  interruption  of  a  mere 
splendour,  no  one  speaks  greatly  or  utters  irrel- 
evant poetry;  here,  poetry  is  the  very  slave 
and  confidant  of  drama,  heroically  obedient. 
But  the  heights  of  The  Changeling,  the  nobility 
of  even  what  was  evil  in  the  passions  of  that 
play,  are  no  longer  attained.  Middleton, 
left  to  himself,  has  returned,  with  new  experi- 
ence and  new  capacity,  to  his  own  level. 

With  one  more  experiment,  and  this  a 
master-piece  of  a  wholly  new  kind,  "  the  only 
work  of  English  poetry,"  says  Swinburne, 
"  which  may  properly  be  called  Aristophanic," 
the  career  of  Middleton  comes,  as  far  as  we 
know,  to  an  end.  A  Game  of  Chess  is  a  satire, 
taking  the  popular  side  against  Spain,  and  it 
was  the  Spanish  ambassador  Gondomar,  the 
"  Machiavel-politician "  and  Black  Knight  of 
its  chess-board,  who  caused  the  suppression 


258    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

of  the  play,  and  the  punishment  of  all  con- 
cerned in  it.  It  is  the  most  perfect  of  Middle- 
ton's  works,  and  it  carries  some  of  his  most 
intimate  qualities  to  a  point  they  had  not 
reached  before.  Banter  turns  to  a  quite 
serious  and  clear  and  bitter  satire;  burlesque 
becomes  a  severe  and  elegant  thing;  the  verse, 
beginning  formally  and  always  kept  well  within 
bounds,  is  fitted  with  supreme  technical  skill 
to  this  new,  outlandish  matter;  there  are 
straight  confessions  of  sins  and  symbolic  feasts 
of  the  vices,  in  which  a  manner  learnt  for  the 
numbering  of  the  feasts  and  fastings  of  the 
city  finds  itself  ready  for  finer  use.  We  learn 
now  how 

fat  cathedral  bodies 
Have  very  often  but  lean  little  soul, 

and  the  imagery,  already  expressive,  takes  on 
a  new  colour  of  solemn  mockery. 

From  this  Leviathan-scandal  that  lies  rolling 
Upon  the  crystal  waters  of  devotion, 

is  sometimes  the  language  of  the  Black  Knight, 
and  sometimes: 

In  the  most  fortunate  angle  of  the  world 
The  court  hath  held  the  city  by  the  horns 
Whilst  I  have  milked  her. 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         259 

Technique,  in  drama  and  verse  alike,  never 
flags;  and  the  play  is  a  satire  and  criticism, 
no  longer  of  city  manners  or  of  personal 
vices,  but  of  the  nations'  policy;  and  that  it 
was  accepted  as  such,  by  the  public  and  by  the 
government  of  the  tune,  is  proved  by  the 
fifteen  hundred  pounds  taken  by  the  actors 
in  nine  days,  and  by  the  arrest  of  Middleton 
for  what  was  really  a  form  of  patriotism. 

We  have  no  record  of  anything  written  by 
Middleton  during  the  three  remaining  years  of 
his  life.  A  Game  of  Chess  is  the  culmination 
of  those  qualities  which  seem  to  have  been 
most  natural  and  instinctive  in  him,  hi  spite 
of  the  splendid  work  of  another  kind  which  he 
did  with  Rowley  in  The  Changeling.  His 
genius  was  varied  and  copious,  and  he  showed 
his  capacity  to  do  almost  every  kind  of 
dramatic  work  with  immense  vigour.  Life  is 
never  long  absent  from  these  tangled  scenes, 
in  which  so  heterogeneous  a  crowd  hurries 
by,  not  stopping  long  enough  to  make  us 
familiar  with  most  of  the  persons  hi  it,  but 
giving  us  an  unmistakable  human  savour. 
Few  of  the  plays  are  quite  satisfactory  all 
through;  there  is  almost  always  some  con- 


260    STUDIES  IN  ELIZABETHAN  DRAMA 

siderable  flaw,  in  construction,  in  characterisa- 
tion, or  in  aesthetic  taste;  yet  hardly  one 
of  them  can  be  neglected  in  our  consideration 
of  the  work  as  a  whole.  In  single  scenes  of 
tragedy  and  of  comedy  (romantic  comedy, 
the  comedy  of  manners,  farce  and  satire)  he 
can  hold  his  own  against  any  contemporary 
and  it  is  only  in  lyric  verse  that  he  is  never 
successful.  He  became  a  remarkable  dramatic 
poet,  but  he  was  not  born  to  sing.  Poetry 
came  to  him  slowly,  and  he  had  to  disentangle 
it  from  more  active  growths  of  comic  energy. 
It  came  to  him  when  he  began  to  realise  that 
there  was  something  in  the  world  besides 
cheating  shop-keepers  and  cozening  lawyers, 
and  the  bargains  made  between  men  and 
women  for  bodies,  not  souls.  With  the  height- 
ening of  emotions  his  style  heightens,  and  as 
his  comedy  refines  itself  his  verse  becomes 
subtler.  The  cry  of  De  Flores: 

Ha!  what  art  thou  that  tak'st  away  the  light 
Betwixt  that  star  and  me?  I  dread  thee  not: 
Twas  but  a  mist  of  conscience; 

is  almost  unique  in  imagination  in  his  work. 
And  it  is  drama  even  more  than  it  is  poetry. 
His  style  is  the  most  plausible  of  all  styles 


MIDDLETON  AND  ROWLEY         2G1 

in  poetry,  and  it  has  a  probable  beauty, 
giving  an  easy  grace  of  form  to  whatever 
asks  to  be  expressed.  It  rarely  steps  aside 
to  pick  up  a  jewel,  nor  do  jewels  drop  naturally 
out  of  its  mouth. 

1907. 


THE    END 


A     000  669  003     6 


